As a seasoned insomniac, I knew sometimes the way to beat sleeplessness was to outwit it: to pretend you didn't care about sleeping. Then sometimes sleep became piqued, like a rejected lover, and crept up to try to seduce you.

In a world not made for women, criticism and ridicule follow us all the days of our lives. Usually they are indications that we are doing something right.

She was mine and not-mine all at once. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the most terrifying.

How could one create life with someone who represented death?

Genius is a strong aphrodisiac.

Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.

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.