Erica Jong Country Quotations

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

From Roman times to the present, Italy has been a country to fall in love with - a tribute to all that is enduring, crazy, pagan, joyous, melancholy, at once banal and divine, in the human spirit.

You're not too fat; you're just in the wrong country.

What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago.