I have an intimate relationship with books. After all, I take them with me into the bathtub-not an invitation I offer lightly.

If you know you can do it - if you can already chart every day in your future - then why bother? Choose to do something you have more trouble imagining. Take a chance.

I personally translated the word 'vendetta' as Italian for 'What do you mean, "you want to see other women"?

Humor is a show of both strength and of vulnerability: you are willing to make the first move but you are trusting in the response of your listener.

Interestingly, anger and lust are also elusive states once they have passed. Trying to recall why you were angry about something when you've calmed down is like trying to remember why you were in love with someone who no longer attracts you: the initial impulse triggering the emotion is impossible to recapture.

Truth is like nuclear waste: it needs to be dealt with carefully. Sometimes it needs to be buried way, way out of town. And sometimes it should never be uncovered at all.

Although fear in the right dosage and under the right circumstance protects us ... imaginary fear offers straitjackets instead of lifejackets, nooses instead of safety nets.