Fear is a sign-usually a sign that I'm doing something right.

Venice is ever the fragile labyrinth at the edge of the sea and it reminds us how brief and perilous the journeys of our lives are; perhaps that is why we love it so. City of plagues and brief liaisons, city of lingering deaths and incendiary loves, city of chimeras, nightmares, pigeons, bells. You are the only city in the world whose dialect has a word for the shimmer of canal water reflected on the ceiling of a room.

I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me.

You don't get to choose what you get famous for and you don't get to control which of your life's many struggles gets to stand for you.

Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent.

Humor is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations.

If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move.