To be first-rate at anything you have to stake your all. Nobody's an artist 'on the side'.

Doubt remains a luxury I won't do without.

If you don't love life you can't enjoy an oyster there is a shock of freshness to it and intimations of the ages of man, some piercing intuition of the sea and all its weeds and breezes. [They] shiver you for a split second.

It is like a party all the time nobody has to worry about giving one or being invited it is going on every day in the street and you can go down or be part of it from your window.

Even a tourist can tell in a Roman street that he is in something and not outside of something as he would be in most cities. In Rome to go out is to go home.

The Roman form of serenade is to race a motorcycle motor under the girl's window, but mufflers are not common in any situation the only things as dearly loved as a good noise are breakneck speed and eye-splitting lights, preferably neon - all expressions of well-being, like a huge belly-laugh.

You are eating the sea, that's it, only the sensation of a gulp of sea water has been wafted out of it by some sorcery, and you are on the verge of remembering you don't know what, mermaids or the sudden smell of kelp on the ebb tide or a poem you read once, something connected with the flavor of life itself.

Obviously, if you don't love life, you can't enjoy an oyster.

Even the stupidest cat seems to know more than any dog.