When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped.

My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.

Life has to end, love doesn't.

I believe he died this way on purpose. I believe he wanted no chilling moments, no one to witness his last breath and be haunted by it, the way he had been haunted by his mother's death-notice telegram or by his father's corpse in the city morgue.

I think we hear a lot of talk about college, and we don't hear about early education.

It's the same thing with faith, by the way." We don't want to get stuck having to go to services all the time, or having to follow all the rules. We don't want to commit to God. We'll take Him when we need Him, or when things are going good. But real commitment? That requires staying power‎-‎-‎-in faith and in marriage." And if you don't commit? I asked. "Your choice. But you miss what's on the other side." What's on the other side? "Ah." He smiled, "A happiness you cannot find alone.