The sharing of food is the basis of social life, and to many people it is the only kind of social life worth participating in.

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.

A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.

When I was alone, I lived on eggplant, the stove top cook's strongest ally.

People who like to cook like to talk about food....without one cook giving another cook a tip or two, human life might have died out a long time ago.

Lentils are friendly - the Miss Congeniality of the bean world.

And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.

The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is a gift.

Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed.

A person cooking is a person giving. Even the simplest food is a gift.

We need time to defuse, to contemplate. Just as in sleep our brains relax and give us dreams, so at some time in the day we need to disconnect, reconnect, and look around us.

Once upon a time--which, when you come to think of it, is reallythe only proper way to begin a story--the only way that reallysmacks of romance and fairyland--

Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen every day.

I need a girl who will put me in my place, but I also want to laugh and have a good time.

Jove lifts the golden balances that show The fates of mortal men, and things below.

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.

I'm certainly not a prude.

My Mom and I shopped all the time, she shops all the time, and I was always into fashion. I've been blessed to be in a situation where I can now buy some of the things that look good.

I think I've realized that when you are aiming to create a real body of work, you are as much defined by the things you don't do, as by the things you do.

I knew instinctively that it was the very hardness of life in the desert which drew me back there - it was the same pull which takes men back to the polar ice, to high mountains, and to the sea.