“There was room for them. A great deal of Italy, back then, was forest. Where man goes, trees die; or, to paraphrase Tacitus, we make a desert and call it progress.”

“A tree looks a lot taller in the desert than it does in the forest.”

“The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of a long gray hair and a beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.”

“It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”

“We had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us... calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”

“What goes on between a man and his missus is nobody's business; especially where desert toppin's involved.”