“Was I insane? Maybe. But then, there were many different kinds of insanity. Aunt Rose had always taken for granted that the whole world was in a state of constantly fluctuating madness, and that a ...”

“There is a trick to flying. The angels told me." He had smiled at my wide-eyed awe. "You need to forget everything you know as a human being. When you are human, you discover that there is great po...”

“But he is an Italian," was Umberto's sensible reply. "He doesn't care if you break some law a little bit, as long as you wear beautiful shoes. Are you wearing beautiful shoes? Are you wearing the s...”

“Great love, you believe, carries the seeds of great sorrow.”

“She laughed out loud, a warm, knowing laughter that made me once again wonder about the secret ingredient in these womens lives. Whatever it was, I was clearly missing it. It was so much more than ...”

“...or perhaps about acknowledging that life is a delicate balance of great forces, and that good would lose its potency if there was no evil left to fight in the world.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“Let me feel how thy pulses beat.”

“Jesus Christ! A man could only take so much. She yelped as he snatched her up around the waist and sat her on the counter. Sit there and dont move. Dont bat your eyes. Dont lick your lips. Dont get...”

“It was a superstition among them that a lover who smoked would always return, even from France. A man's sexual capacity might be injured by smoking, but they would always prefer a faithful to a pot...”