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

When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.

People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.

Hunger is more than a problem of belly and guts, and ... the satisfying of it can and must and does nourish the spirit as well as the body.

... I think we grieve forever, but that goes for love too, fortunately for us all.

I am more modest now, but I still think that one of the pleasantest of all emotions is to know that I, I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few, that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish, to sustain them truly against the hungers of the world.

No yoga exercise, no meditation in a chapel filled with music will rid you of your blues better than the humble task of making your own bread.