Rome is all things high and low. It is like God, it accommodates so much.

Italians' relationship to food is loving, informal, and gay.

If there is one lesson Rome teaches, it is that matter is good; in Rome the holy and the homely rise and converge.

To surrender one's vulnerable body to water has always seemed to me a limpid act of will that has no coutnerpart or equal, unless it is sex.

All is waiting and all is work; all is change and all is permanence.

I love medieval cities; they do not clamor for attention; they possess their souls - their riches - in quiet; formal, courteous, they reveal themselves slowly, stone by stone, garden by garden; hidden treasures wait calmly to be loved and yield to introspective wandering.

Children hold us hostage; they represent our commitment to the future.