parenting is an exercise in unintended consequences.

As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.

A rich, multi-dimensional tour of Naples, most brilliant, battered, and bewildering of cities, here fixed to the page with wit and élan. Splendid.

I'm a sucker for lost worlds. I was nostalgic even as a child. I was happiest in my hometown library in Adams, Mass., where nothing seemed to change.

When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere.

And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.

An interesting thing about book groups, it seems to me, is that there is no correlation between a brilliant book and a brilliant discussion. The first seems sometimes even to undermine the second.

Motherhood is always an act of courage.

My next book is on the Salem witch trials. As a small-town Massachusetts girl, this makes me very happy. So does the reunion with documents!

No one in the modern world controls the wealth or territory that Cleopatra did.

Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

On the other hand, if the future is not the one you chose then you may have to use your willpower to obtain the future of your liking.

Good heart, good soul.

My biggest fear is forgetting why I fell in love with writing. My biggest dream is never allowing that to happen.

... man is eating the earth up like a candy bar.

I don't much believe in bumper sticker characterizations of foreign policy.

I would be good for maybe not the center square but an upper square on 'Hollywood Squares.'

I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.

We're all a little tired.

Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.