I was a quiet teenager, introverted, full of angst.

I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater.

You could probably get through life without knowing how to roast a chicken, but the question is, would you want to?

You cannot truly say you live well unless you eat well.

Sometimes...we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake.

Sometimes it's good just to be seduced by the particular cheeses spread out in front of you on a cheese counter.

I am always surprised when people read double entendres into my innocuous babble.

I don't believe in low-fat cooking.

I don't believe you can ever really cook unless you love eating.

I never taste the wine first in restaurants, I just ask the waiter to pour.

Cooking is actually quite aggressive and controlling and sometimes, yes, there is an element of force-feeding going on.

...'being published’ is not the same as being a real writer.

He tasted passion. He tasted emotion. He tasted a world he’d never imagined, one he could never enter. It was right there in front of him, suddenly open to him. Unexpected. Exciting. Scary.

Embrace life in totality.

For what reasons would you waste your time on earth?

The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.

Couple stares, couple texts, couple dates. Couple 'I think that we're ready's couple 'I think we should wait's

Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign o terror in the shadow of the guillotine.

When you try to bring a story to life, it starts in your head and you see possibilities for it, but it's just one damn thing after another.