Illness can make us behave in the most surprising ways.

There are aspects of love that I once undervalued. Kindness. Having a sort of honor when love is on the table.

[The director's idea for the film was:] A young American or English girl goes to Tuscany to visit English expatriates. She is on a mission to lose her virginity. That's a mission easily accomplished, if that's the only mission. The story had to be more complicated than that. Because there is so little happening dramatically, there had to be something to keep you curious.

...[She] felt as if she were both a stranger to herself and more herself than she'd ever been.

Recording a scene with paint rather than film sinks you more deeply into your surroundings. You have to look a little harder and a little longer. And you end up with a memento.

There is no good reason. Don't waste your life waiting for good reasons...You'll wait and wait.

Did people ever stop changing? They surprised you with fresh pain. Sometimes they surprised you with happiness, but the pain was the sharper surprise. There was no way to protect yourself from it. People could always change and always hurt you. Of course it went in the other direction too, you could hurt them when you didn't intend it and that too was out of your control.