"What do we find in Italy that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human that other countries lost long ago. Not only is Italy one of the few places left where fantasy runs unfettered -- as Luigi Barzini said in The Italians, 'even instruments of precision like speedometers and clocks are made to lie in Italy for your happiness' -- it is also one of the few places that tolerates human nature with all its faults. Italy is the past, but it's also the future. It is pagan, but it is also Christian and Jewish. It is grand and tawdry, imperishable and decayed. Italy has seen marauding armies, Fascists and Communists, fashions and fripperies come and go. And it is, for all its layers of musty history, a place that embraces existence, burnishes the moment."
- Erica Jong, My Italy
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