What keeps me awake at the wheel is the thrill of trying something completely new with each book. I’m not a risk-taker in life, generally speaking, but as a writer I definitely choose the fast car, the impossible rock face, the free fall.

Food culture in the United States has long been cast as the property of a privileged class. It is nothing of the kind. Culture is the property of a species.

Do you think its possible to live without wanting to put your name on your paintings? To belong to a group so securely you don't need to rise above it?

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

Wake up now, look alive, for here is a day off work just to praise Creation: the turkey, the squash, and the corn, these things that ate and drank sunshine, grass, mud, and rain, and then in the shortening days laid down their lives for our welfare and onward resolve. There's the miracle for you, the absolute sacrifice that still holds back seed: a germ of promise to do the whole thing again, another time. . . Thanksgiving is Creation's birthday party. Praise harvest, a pause and sigh on the breath of immortality.

Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.

We agreed with him in principal - we were little scientists, born and bred. But children robbed of love will dwell on magic.