Without peanuts, it isn't a cocktail party.

I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

I think careful cooking is love, don't you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who's close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give.

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

If you're not ready to fail, you're not going to learn how to cook.

The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.

It's hard to imagine a civilization without onions; in one form or another their flavor blends into almost everything in the meal except the desert.