Shame can be self-indulgence too.

Even a tourist can tell in a Roman street that he is in something and not outside of something as he would be in most cities. In Rome to go out is to go home.

Even the stupidest cat seems to know more than any dog.

If you don't love life you can't enjoy an oyster; there is a shock of freshness to it and intimations of the ages of man, some piercing intuition of the sea and all its weeds and breezes. [They] shiver you for a split second.

Shame can be self-indulgence too.

It is like a party all the time; nobody has to worry about giving one or being invited; it is going on every day in the street and you can go down or be part of it from your window.

Rome is ... an impossible compounding of time, in which no century has respect for any other and all hit you in a jumble at every turn.