I ought to tell you that I'm probably your cousin.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

It's time to start living the life you've imagined.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.

Excellence does not require perfection.

The Roman jurisprudence has the longest known history of any set of human institutions.

I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.

It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.

Mussolini?” Leo frowned. “Wasn’t he like BFFs with Hitler?

We all want to feel like the most beautiful girl in the room, to be chosen and loved forever. The Cinderella story gives us hope of our impossible dreams becoming true.

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.

I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —

My parents' divorce settlement involved a bar tab.

I enjoy thinking myself into other times and places. I don't like some of the conventions of the 'historical novel', but I think there's a way of doing it that has a lot of merit.

Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.

You are learning too much, remembering too much, trying to hard relax a little bit, give life a chance to flow its own way, unassisted by your mind and effort. Stop directing the river's flow!

More will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, and nothing else.

It's important to use a stage name so that your real name doesn't appear on public records.