I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, “at nine o’clock. Don’t open your door to anyone else.” “Not even my balcony door?” “Especially not your balcony door.

.... "death turns all men into great lovers. Would that they were equally ardent while the lady was still alive!

Verona is a very beautiful city, but Siena just never ceases to fascinate me.

...it is fifty percent what they see, and fifty percent what they think they see.

Was I insane? Maybe. But then, there were many different kinds of insanity. Aunt Rose had always taken for granted that the whole world was in a state of constantly fluctuating madness, and that a neurosis was not an illness, but a fact of life, like pimples. Some have more, some have less, but only truly abnormal people have none at all. This commonsense philosophy had consoled me many times before, and it did now, too.

In many ways, a degree in the history of ideas is the ideal training for an aspiring writer.

Janice used to say that instinct was reason in a hurry; I was not so sure about the reason part.