Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.

She had certain thoughts which were like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story.

In this world people have to pay an extortionate price for any exceptional gift whatever.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.