I detest . . . anything over-cooked, over-herbed, over-sauced, over elaborate. Nothing can go very far wrong at table as long as there is honest bread, butter, olive oil, a generous spirit, lively appetites and attention to what we are eating.

All wealth is relative; and so is its absence.

In Europe, where human relations like clothes are supposed to last, one's got to be wearable. In France one has to be interesting, in Italy pleasant, in England one has to fit.

public opinion, the sum of private opinions, does matter, can matter often for good.

I detest . . . anything over-cooked, over-herbed, over-sauced, over elaborate. Nothing can go very far wrong at table as long as there is honest bread, butter, olive oil, a generous spirit, lively appetites and attention to what we are eating.

It would seem that in history it's never a tooth for a tooth, but a thousand, a hundred thousand for one.

A part, a large part, of traveling is an engagement of the ego v. the world. The world is hydra headed, as old as the rocks and as changing as the sea, enmeshed inextricably in its ways. The ego wants to arrive at places safely and on time.