Take care to chop the onion fine.

To the table or to bed, you must come when you are bid.

"Only the pots know the boiling points of the broths," she says as Tita weeps into the wedding batter she is making to celebrate the marriage of her sister to her own true love.

Tita knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour.

The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.

There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.

To know how to produce a work of art is to know how to discard the extraneous.