
The sole thing you can do with your sorrow and with life's general incurability is to concentrate on the eternal joys: on food, wine, lovely weather, on the cool of the evening, on a folk song from the mountains, on greeting people cheerfully. The loveliest of all Italian greetings is only used when passing someone sitting on the steps or the sidewalk to enjoy the cool of the evening. It goes: "Buon fresco!"—that is, "Good cooling!" and you might say it's the sum of all wisdom about what good you can wish a fellow human being on earth. You shouldn't demand too much!
—Winter in Bellapalma (1958)