Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer. . .

The real reason women fall in love abroad is not that they are free of domestic inhibitions but that they translate their love of stone and place into love of flesh. ... Is this true?

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

I made the mistake of thinking that if you add up the past, you sum up the future; I forgot how frequently life astonishes us.

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

I love cloisters, which are the architectural equivalent of a theological concept: perfect freedom within set boundaries.

my love of water ... is mingled with and almost indistinguishable from a fear of water (I can float in a vertical position - I enter a fugue state - but I cannot bear to bury my face in water).