The family is the essential presence, the thing that never leaves you, even if you find you have to leave it.

Literature is always best when it is celebrating its subjects darkly. ... And because it is often by describing the thing lost - a family, a moment of happiness, a child, a father - that we understand the full weight of what we had.

The family is the essential presence, the thing that never leaves you, even if you find you have to leave it.

The crowd is not us. It never is.

Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millennia. Now it is evanescent, like a season.

The most important knowledge is understanding what you can't do.

You can't do traditional work at a modern pace. Traditional work has traditional rhythms. You need calm. You can be busy, but you must remain calm.