“Of course food has an important cultural use in families, but there are things that have more important cultural uses in families, and broadening the conversation out simply from what’s reasonable also allows in other things.”

It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can’t people say what they mean at the time?

I wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.

Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore — “I’m easy; I’ll eat anything” — can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.

He couldn’t bear to live, but he couldn’t bear to die. He couldn’t bear the thought of he making love to someone else, but neither could he bear the absence of the thought. And as for the note, he couldn’t bear to keep it, but he couldn’t bear to destroy it either.

Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree.

Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.

It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us…on the inside, looking out.

Isn’t it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we’re doing what we’re doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?

She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes.

We spent our lives making livings.

Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?

She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.

I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.

It’s hard to say goodbye to the place you’ve lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.

Only humans can cry tears.

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

People who walk away from you without a clear conversation or a willingness to see your heart decided who you were long time ago. Let them go.

You know what’s sexy? A real conversation.

I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.

Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them.

So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

You’re always in a rush, or else you’re too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the traveling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaze, the way you move and talk.