War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.

I cannot count the good people I know who, to my mind, would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers.

Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.

When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it . . . and it is all one.

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.