“Weather creates character.”

I love medieval cities; they do not clamor for attention; they possess their souls – their riches – in quiet; formal, courteous, they reveal themselves slowly, stone by stone, garden by garden; hidden treasures wait calmly to be loved and yield to introspective wandering.

If there is one lesson Rome teaches, it is that matter is good; in Rome the holy and the homely rise and converge.

Illness is regarded as a crime, and crime is regarded as illness.

Belief sometimes precedes understanding; faith sometimes precedes scientific evidence.

Insanity is a lack of proportion.

The past can be tamed and controlled.

Every generation reinvents the wheel – and in the process it often adds to rather than subtracts from a woman’s burdens.

There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

Italy offers one the most priceless of all one’s possessions – one’s own soul.

Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer. . .

the islands of Italy combine all the elements – fire, water, earth, and air – and that is irresistible.

Women’s propensity to share confidences is universal. We confirm our reality by sharing.

The real reason women fall in love abroad is not that they are free of domestic inhibitions but that they translate their love of stone and place into love of flesh. … Is this true?

It’s the perpetually unfinished quality of housework that makes it oppressive – it never ends, like bad psychoanalysis, or a dream interrupted. It is paradoxically true that it is exactly this daily re-creation of the world that lends housekeeping its nobility and romance.

my love of water … is mingled with and almost indistinguishable from a fear of water (I can float in a vertical position – I enter a fugue state – but I cannot bear to bury my face in water).

the gardens of our childhood are all beautiful.

I don’t make plans, because life is short and unpredictable – much like the weather!

When the weather is hot, keep a cool mind. When the weather is cold, keep a warm heart.

I love England from head to toe. I love the weather, the people. I was there in the summer and it was nice. The people are so groovy.

I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.

At twilight time the smog makes a rainbow.

Weather abroad and weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction.

The willow turns his back on inclement weather. And if he can do it, we can do it.

He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather.