Tom Robbins Quote

Now, my all-time favorite accolade from a book reviewer was when Fernanda Pivano, Italy’s best-known critic, wrote in a leading Italian newspaper that Tom Robbins is the most dangerous writer in the world. I never read my reviews, even in English, but others sometimes pass choice bits along, so when I had occasion to meet the legendary Signora Pivano at a reception in Milan, I asked her what she meant by that wonderfully flattering remark. She replied, Because you are saying zat love is zee only thing that matters and everything else eese a beeg joke. Well, being uncertain, frankly, that is what I’d been saying, I changed the subject and inquired about her recent public denial that she’d ever gone to bed with Ernest Hemingway, whom she’d shown around Italy in the thirties. Why didn’t you sleep with Hemingway? I inquired. Signora Pivano sighed, closed her large brown eyes, shook her gray head, and answered in slow, heavily accented English, I was a fool. Okay, back to the New York Cinematheque. Why did I choose to go watch a bunch of jerky, esoteric, often self-indulgent 16mm movies rather than sleep with the sexy British actress? Move over, Fernanda, there’s room for two fools on your bus.