To live exhilaratingly in and for the moment is deadly serious work, fun of the most exhausting sort

Italy offers one the most priceless of all one's possessions - one's own soul.

My mother was my first jealous lover.

The past can be tamed and controlled.

Italians do not regard food as merely fuel. They regard it as medicine for the soul, one of life's abiding pleasures.

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

Facts mean nothing to wounded feelings.