“Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.”

“Sometimes the valley below is like a bowl filled up with fog. I can see hard green figs on two trees and pears on a tree just below me. A fine crop coming in. May summer last a hundred years.”

“Oh, come on, he was twenty-six. And he had poetry on his lips.”

“One of those flash epiphanies of travel, the realization that worlds you'd love vibrantly exist outside your ignorance of them. The vitality of many lives you know nothing about. The breeze lifting a blue curtain in a doorway billows just the same whether you are lucky enough to observe it or not. Travel gives such jolts. I could live in this town, so how is it that I've never been here before today?”

“Although he's slight, he has that wiry strength that seems to come more from will than muscle.”

“The Only Thing More Surprising Than the Chance She's Taking...Is Where It's Taking Her! ”

“Always, I liked the infinitive 'to go.' Let's go, let's go. let's really go. 'Andare' was the first verb I learned to conjugate in Italian. 'Andiamo,' let's go, teh sound comes out at a gallop.”