True happiness is impossible without solitude.... I need solitude in my life as I need food and drink and the laughter of little children. Extravagant though it may sound, solitude is the filter of my soul. It nourishes me, and rejuvenates me. Left alone, I discovered that I keep myself good company.

[William] Klein has eyes like a knife. He is ruthless and outrageous but never mean - he is tender and funny and violent - and, I'm sure, really in love with our crazy Rome.

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself.

The Fountain of Youth is in your mind.

I always try to have a vacation.

I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people's standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.