“This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.”

No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.

Writing anything is a treason of sorts.

Only desperation can account for what the Chinese do in the name of ‘medicine.’

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

Without new ideas, success can become stale.

Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

The idea of America is a mutt-culture, isn’t it? Who the hell is America if not everybody else?

I had field experience, a vocabulary, and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.

I’m not going anywhere. I hope. It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.

I learned to recognize failure.

I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.

And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.

Selling out is getting a job.

Good food and good eating are about risk.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

I cannot fuel the future if I neglect to heal the past.

Change doesn’t have to be hard, and healing doesn’t have to hurt. Surely by now you know that every thing happens for a reason! There is something better awaiting you on the other side of this.

It’s important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.

When you can tell the story and it doesn’t bring up any pain, you know it is healed.

A broken heart heals when we allow the healing to go as deep as the wound went.

You haven’t been through one thing that God cannot heal you from.

People don’t need Christians to act like we always have it together. People need us to be real! What kind of healing would come if we all just got real before God and others?