In the modern industrialized Western world, where I come from, the person whom you choose to marry is perhaps the single most vivid representation of your own personality. Your spouse becomes the most gleaming possible mirror through which your emotional individualism is reflected back to the world. There is no choice more intensely personal after all, than whom you choose to marry; that choice tells us, to a large extent, who you are.

Childlessness doesn't make people selfish; selfishness makes people selfish.

You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

[Italian men] are like show poodles. Sometimes they look so good I want to applaud.

Life's metaphors are God's instructions.

In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.

Everything really is going to be okay. (And if not okay, then at least comic.)