I love music. But I've never owned a TV in my adult life, and I've never lived in a place with a television.

The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters.

A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between that which is speculation and that which is fact.

So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that.

I was extraordinarily lucky. I wrote a book because I wanted to see if I could write a mystery. Someone nagged me into sending it to a contest, which it won, after which I was offered a two-book contract, thus requiring the writing of a second book.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

Venetians feel affection and loyalty to their city, rather than to the Italian state.