I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days.

I believe marriage is a spectator sport.

You can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings

Fire is a speed reader, which is why the ignorant burn books: fire races through pages, takes care of all the knowledge, and never bores you with a summary.

A Lucky Child is an extraordinary story, simply and beautifully told. Heartbreaking and thrilling, it examines what it means to be human, in every good and awful sense. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Thomas Buergenthal remembers and renders the small mysteries and grand passions of childhood, even a childhood lived under the most horrific circumstances.

There are writers who can show you the excellence of their brains and writers who show you the depths of their souls: I don't know any writer who does both at the same time as brilliantly as Roxane Gay.

Enough fine weather and money and a few memorable meals make any place desirable.