Ambrose Bierce

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.

Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

The covers of this book are too far apart.

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.