Tourists moved over the piazza like drugged insects on a painted plate.

How is the newcomer to deal with Rome? What is one to make of this marble rubble, this milk of wolves, this blood of Caesars, this sunrise of Renaissance, this baroquery of blown stone, this warm hive of Italians, this antipasto of civilization?

Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier.

The notion that the great artist requires a great patron has been around since the Pharaohs. That the born patron also needs an artist to patronize is a less-studied phenomenon.

Natural villains are hard to come by, what with all the shrinks and social-scientist types threatening to understand everybody into the ground.

Ballet's image of perfection is fashioned amid a milieu of wracked bodies, fevered imaginations, Balkan intrigue and sulfurous hatreds where anything is likely, and dancers know it.

trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell.