of all the foolish Fears of Humankind, Fear of the Future is by far the most foolish.

From Roman times to the present, Italy has been a country to fall in love with - a tribute to all that is enduring, crazy, pagan, joyous, melancholy, at once banal and divine, in the human spirit.

Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

My mother wanted me to be her wings, to fly as she never quite had the courage to do. I love her for that. I love the fact that she wanted to give birth to her own wings.

The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past.

My generation of young female writers discovered that we could dictate the form and content of our own fiction.