But still, I’d be darned if I was going to be one of those Americans who stomp around Italy barking commands in ever-louder English. I was going to be one of those Americans who traversed Italy with my forehead knit in concentration, divining wordsw from their Latin roots and answering by wedging French cognates into Italian pronunciations spliced onto a standard Spanish verb conjugation.

Sugar, it's no parade but you'll get down the street one way or another, so you'd just as well throw your shoulders back and pick up the pace.

Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?

Everything truly important is washable.

At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.

Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.

I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.