In the face of evil, detachment is a dubious virtue.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONIn the face of evil, detachment is a dubious virtue.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONFacts mean nothing to wounded feelings.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON[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 HARRISONthe islands of Italy combine all the elements – fire, water, earth, and air – and that is irresistible.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONPorches are America’s lost rooms.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONInsanity is a lack of proportion.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONmy 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).
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONPersecution 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 HARRISONChildren hold us hostage; they represent our commitment to the future.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONOne 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 HARRISONEvery 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 HARRISONTo surrender one’s vulnerable body to water has always seemed to me a limpid act of will that has no coutnerpart or equal, unless it is sex.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONNothing is more democratic, less judgmental, than water. Water doesn’t care whether flesh is withered or fresh; it caresses aged flesh and firm flesh with equal love.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONEvery generation reinvents the wheel – and in the process it often adds to rather than subtracts from a woman’s burdens.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISONI 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 HARRISONThe 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?
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON