This Forest eats itself and lives forever.

Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don't tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It's fairly sexy. Of course I don't know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don't burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch. (p. 247)

The past is all we know of the future.

I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.

The last generation's worst fears became the next one's B-grade entertainment.

For if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest.

When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.