“At some point the talk got heated, and Paolo called Mother a strumpet, for which Daddy was said to have stomped a serious mudhole in Paolo's ass.”

“Paolo and Francesca were not ideal readers since they confess to Dante that after the first kiss they read no more. Ideal readers would have kissed and then read on.”

“Love makes you weak. It distracts you from the important things. It can make you lose sight of the objective.-Uncle Paolo”

“It was Don Paolo's birthday and all the people of the village were gathered in the piazza to celebrate him. The band played, the wine flowed, the children danced, and, as he stood for a moment alone under the pergola, a little girl approached the the beloved priest. "But Don Paolo, are you not happy?" she asked him. "Of course I am happy," he assured the little girl. "Why, then, aren't you crying?”

“It's so damn easy to judge. But as Paolo knows from his niece, no matter how much you want someone back in your life, sometimes it's the letting-them-back-in part that hurts the most”

“The mother of the heating contractor does notHave the same problem as the mother of the poet.When the mother of the heating contractor talks about her sonIt's usually understood, from the beginning, that her son,The heating contractor, is not pretending to be a heating contractor.”