I can no more think of my own life without thinking of wine and wines and where they grew for me and why I drank them when I did and why I picked the grapes and where I opened the oldest procurable bottles, and all that, than I can remember living before I breathed.

I live with carpe diem engraved on my heart.

Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.

But if I must be alone, I refuse to be alone as if it were something weak and distasteful, like convalescence.

When shall we live if not now?

War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist

I was horribly self-conscious; I wanted everybody to look at me and think me the most fascinating creature in the world, and yet I died a small hideous death if I saw even one person throw a casual glance at me.