“My mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.”

“Leave it to the English to fabricate a lake,” she tossed over her shoulder to Carla, who snickered.“And leave it to the Italians to fall into it!”“I was retrieving my hat!”“Ah . . . that makes it all much more logical. Do you even know how to swim?”“Do I know how to swim?” she asked, and he took more than a little pleasure in her offense.“I was raised on the banks of the Adige! Which happens to be a real river.”“Impressive,” he said, not at all impressed. “And tell me, did you ever swim in said river?”“Of course! But I wasn’t wearing”—she waved a hand to indicate her dress—“sixteen layers of fabric!”“Why not?”“Because you don’t swim in sixteen layers of fabric!”“No?”“No!”“Why not?” He had her now.“Because you will drown!”“Ah,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “Well, at least we’ve learned something today.”

“She drowned in words that could not teach her how to swim.”

“The really hard part isn't stepping off the boat; it's learning how to swim.”

“When Roseanne read the first script of mine that got into her hands without being edited by someone else she said, 'How can you write a middle-aged woman this well?' I said, 'If you met my mom you wouldn't ask'.”

“Oh, I brought you something." Her mom pulled a bag from her purse. "I know how you like T-shirts," she said.Kylie couldn't help but think, My mom went to England and all I got was a T-shirt, but she smiled and pulled it out of the bag and then chuckled when she read the script across the front: My mom went to England and all I got was this T-shirt."Perfect," Kylie said.”