At its best, [Japanese cooking] is inextricably meshed with aesthetics, with religion, with tradition and history. It is evocative of seasonal changes, or of one's childhood, or of a storm at sea.

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

Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters.

...for me there is too little of life to spend most of it forcing myself into detachment from it.

[Bachelors'] approach to gastronomy is basically sexual, since few of them under seventy-nine will bother to produce a good meal unless it is for a pretty woman.

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

Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat - and drink! - with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.