The magical descriptions of Italy and hilarious observations about love, travel, natives and foreigners in Love in Idleness are but a few of its many pleasures. Amanda Craig has created a hot shimmery climate in which a cast of old friends, quirky family members and naughty children who make love potions come to know themselves and their hearts. A delightful brew.

It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can.

Life on earth, filled with uncertainty and change, seemed far more difficult than what lay beyond the grave.

In the end maybe what marriage offered was the determination of one's burial site.

Our mission in life is not to discover our fate as we go along, or even to procreate, but rather to fill up the endless gray void that is time.

Is it love that connects us, is that what it is? I never knew that the feeling I have is regular old love because it's so-intricate. Perhaps there is another name for it, one we don't yet know. I used to think that love was simple and noticeable, like rain falling, so that just as you'd look at your skin and say Water, you would also wake in the morning and say Love. But it has been underneath, this new and old thing I feel, subterranean, silent and steady, like blood, rushing along and along without often making itself known.

It was about forgiving. I understood that forgiveness itself was strong, durable—like strands of a web weaving around us, holding us.