The act of nutrition is not a purely physiological event... The family meal is a formality that cultivates in us... a capacity for sharing, generosity, thoughtfulness, a talent for civilized conversation.

how the French can talk. About a stew, about a fly on the parapet, about death, about anything.

Mine [parents] started out more from scratch, because I'm constantly aware of what they suffered in the war.

Lovers, children, heroes, none of them do we fantasize as extravagantly as we fantasize our parents.

Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy. With Eros the body stands naked, in friendship our spirit is denuded.

The vast Pacific ocean would always remain the islanders' great solace, escape and nourishment, the amniotic fluid that would keep them hedonistic and aloof, guarded, gentle and mysterious.

Oh, save me God, but not quite yet.