That's what dessert means to me: a dollop of sweet love in an otherwise cold world.

As my mother says, your forties are when you finally pay for your past mistakes, the cigarettes and sunburns, the Big Macs and smooth-talking men. She may be right.

Risk is the universe's way of pushing us to become more than what we are. Risk is faith at the edge. Risk is the pulsating nature of life.

Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il desire. The heart that sighs does not have what it desires.

See that's what people don't get about food. It's never the food, it's the love that goes into making it. That's what's important.

In fiction, I searched for my favorite authors, women I have trusted to reassure me than not all teenage guys are total ditwads, that the archetype of the noble cute hero who devotes himself to the girl he loves has not gone the way of the rotary phone. That all I had to do was be myself (smart, hardworking, funny) and be patient and kind and he and I would find each other. As Bea would say, this why they call it fiction.

In fact, a case could be made that worrying about a problem actually prevents you from resolving it, because it deceives your mind into thinking that you're doing something when really you're not.