Whining is just unbecoming.

In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.

The charitable say in effect, 'I seem to have more than I need and you seem to have less than you need. I would like to share my excess with you.' Fine, if my excess is tangible, money or goods, and fine if not, for I learned that to be charitable with gestures and words can bring enormous joy and repair injured feelings.

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.