“Luca’s grandfather (whoI hope is known as Nonno Spaghetti) gave him his first sky-blue Lazio jersey when the boywas just a toddler. Luca, likewise, will be a Lazio fan until he dies.“We can change our wives,” he said. “We can change our jobs, our nationalities and evenour religions, but we can never change our team.”By the way, the word for “fan” in Italian is tifoso. Derived from the word for typhus. In otherwords—one who is mightily fevered.”

“We can change our wives,” he said. “We can change our jobs, our nationalities and even our religions, but we can never change our team.”

“The Lazio fans always stop [at the bakery] on their way home from the stadium to stand in the street for hours, leaning up against their motorcycles, talking about the game, looking macho as anything, and eating cream puffs.I love Italy.”

“We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we'll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home.”

“Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest:... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul.”

“We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, drastic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality. To know God, you only need to renounce one thing - your sense of division from God”

“He endeared himself to me forever the first night we met, when I was getting frustrated with my inability to find the words I wanted in Italian, and he put his hand on my arm and said, "Liz, you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new.”