“They were both overwhelmed by the sudden flatness that comes over American travellers in quiet foreign places. No stimuli worked upon them, no voices called them from without, no fragments of their own thoughts came suddenly from the minds of others.”

“Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came fear.”

“And suddenly the world was filled with wooden faces and flat voices - and, you were alone.”

“Both the thoughts and the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them... from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.”

“The baby boom produced a fresh batch of American youngsters -- teenagers they were called -- and they were suddenly coming of age. But until Roman Holiday, it was hard for them to see themselves in the movies. What Audrey offered -- namely to the girls -- was a glimpse of someone who lived by her own code of interests, not her mother's, and who did so with a wholesome independence of spirit.”

“Suddenly I came out of my thoughts to notice everything around me again-the catkins on the willows, the lapping of the water, the leafy patterns of the shadows across the path. And then myself, walking with the alignment that only comes after miles, the loose diagonal rhythm of arms swinging in synchronization with legs in a body that felt long and stretched out, almost as sinuous as a snake…when you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”