black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

The past is a sorry country.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Country Past Sorry
Belief sometimes precedes understanding; faith sometimes precedes scientific evidence.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Belief Faith Understanding
One can be tired of Rome after three weeks and feel one has exhausted it; after three months one feels that one has not even scratched the surface of Rome; and after six months one wishes never to leave it.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Rome Tired Wish
To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectuals — and critics of the Women’s Movement.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Artist Husband Movement
Every house we have lived in, every building to which our hands have lent their work, belongs to us by virtue of love or of regret.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Hands Home Regret
The past can be tamed and controlled.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Controlled Past Tamed
I love cloisters, which are the architectural equivalent of a theological concept: perfect freedom within set boundaries.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Architecture Boundaries Perfect
Beware of people carrying ideas. Beware of ideas carrying people.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Carrying Ideas People
to have a crisis, and act upon it, is one thing. To dwell in perpetual crisis is another.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Crisis Stress Trouble
To live exhilaratingly in and for the moment is deadly serious work, fun of the most exhausting sort
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Anarchy Fun Serious Work
Desire creates its own object.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Desire Object
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.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Cities Garden Travel
[On Werner Erhard, founder of est:] If I wanted a new belief system, I’d choose to believe in God – He’s been in business longer than Werner, and He has better music.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Belief Believe Music
One feels a quickening of the pulse when one crosses a border.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Borders Pulse Travel
Persecution always acts as a jell for members of cults; it proves to them, in the absence of history, liturgy, tradition, and doctrine, that they are God’s chosen.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Absence Doctrine Tradition
What you desire you call into being.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Call Creativity Desire