I can teach a chimp how to make linguini and clams. I can't teach a chimp to dream about it and think about how great it is.

We would load up the yellow Cutlass Supreme station wagon and pick blackberries during blackberry season or spring onions during spring onion season. For us, food was part of the fabric of our day.

There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.

If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that. And I do it with adults now.

I come from an Italian family. One of the greatest and most profound expressions we would ever use in conversations or arguments was a slamming door. The slamming door was our punctuation mark.

When I was a child, our whole family cooked. All my cousins cooked. All my aunts and uncles cooked. It was part of our heritage.

The passion of the Italian or the Italian-American population is endless for food and lore and everything about it.

I got some media coverage for using the tail, the ear, the oink.

Close your eyes and place your finger on a map. Wherever it lands, that's the theme of the evening. So many times we settle for routine dishes. This forces you to try new cuisines.

Chefs don't actually say 'That's a spicy meat-a-ball,' except to indicate that there's a bomb threat in the restaurant without alarming the customers. Terrorism is the spiciest meatball there is.

The kitchen really is the castle itself. This is where we spend our happiest moments and where we find the joy of being a family.

Society is a voluntary scheme of mutual benefit. The state is a compulsory scheme of mutual exploitation.

The answers you get depend on the questions you ask.

Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.

Born to be wild - live to outgrow it.

Not everything comes together in the best way ever every day. It just doesn't.

Fate hath no voice but the heart's impulse.

I'm not a heavy drinker, I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.

I've never been to a class reunion or anything because I'm always afraid of that one - there's going to be some 'Carrie'-like incident.

Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.

It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.