“
There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri
“
I understand addiction now. I never did before, you know. How could a man (or a woman) do something so self-destructive, knowing that they’re hurting not only themselves, but the people they love? It seemed that it would be so incredibly easy for them to just not take that next drink. Just stop. It’s so simple, really. But as so often happens with me, my arrogance kept me from seeing the truth of the matter.
I see it now though.
Every day, I tell myself it will be the last. Every night, as I’m falling asleep in his bed, I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll book a flight to Paris, or Hawaii, or maybe New York. It doesn’t matter where I go, as long as it’s not here. I need to get away from Phoenix—away from him—before this goes even one step further.
And then he touches me again, and my convictions disappear like smoke in the wind.
This cannot end well. That’s the crux of the matter, Sweets. I’ve been down this road before—you know I have—and there’s only heartache at the end. There’s no happy ending waiting for me like there was for you and Matt. If I stay here with him, I will become restless and angry. It’s happening already, and I cannot stop it. I’m becoming bitter and terribly resentful. Before long, I will be intolerable, and eventually, he’ll leave me. But if I do what I have to do, what my very nature compels me to do, and move on, the end is no better. One way or another, he’ll be gone. Is it not wiser to end it now, Sweets, before it gets to that point? Is it not better to accept that this happiness I have is destined to self-destruct?
Tomorrow I will leave. Tomorrow I will stop delaying the inevitable. Tomorrow I will quit lying to myself, and to him.
Tomorrow.
What about today, you ask? Today it’s already too late. He’ll be home soon, and I have dinner on the stove, and wine chilling in the fridge. And he will smile at me when he comes through the door, and I will pretend like this fragile, dangerous thing we have created between us can last forever.
Just one last time, Sweets. Just one last fix. That’s all I need.
And that is why I now understand addiction.
”
”
Marie Sexton (Strawberries for Dessert (Coda, #4; Strawberries for Dessert, #1))
“
Democracy was supposed to champion freedom of speech, and yet the simple rules of table decorum could clamp down on the rights their forefathers had fought and died for.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.
”
”
Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
“
How often since then has she wondered what might have happened if she'd tried to remain with him; if she’d returned Richard's kiss on the corner of Bleeker and McDougal, gone off somewhere (where?) with him, never bought the packet of incense or the alpaca coat with rose-shaped buttons. Couldn’t they have discovered something larger and stranger than what they've got. It is impossible not to imagine that other future, that rejected future, as taking place in Italy or France, among big sunny rooms and gardens; as being full of infidelities and great battles; as a vast and enduring romance laid over friendship so searing and profound it would accompany them to the grave and possibly even beyond. She could, she thinks, have entered another world. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.
Or then again maybe not, Clarissa tells herself. That's who I was. This is who I am--a decent woman with a good apartment, with a stable and affectionate marriage, giving a party. Venture too far for love, she tells herself, and you renounce citizenship in the country you've made for yourself. You end up just sailing from port to port.
Still, there is this sense of missed opportunity. Maybe there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it's as simple as that. Richard was the person Clarissa loved at her most optimistic moment. Richard had stood beside her at the pond's edge at dusk, wearing cut-off jeans and rubber sandals. Richard had called her Mrs. Dalloway, and they had kissed. His mouth had opened to hers; (exciting and utterly familiar, she'd never forget it) had worked its way shyly inside until she met its own. They'd kissed and walked around the pond together.
It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk. The anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.
”
”
Michael Cunningham (The Hours)
“
But—let me tell you my cat joke. It's very short and simple. A hostess is giving a dinner party and she's got a lovely five-pound T-bone steak sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen waiting to be cooked while she chats with the guests in the living room—has a few drinks and whatnot. But then she excuses herself to go into the kitchen to cook the steak—and it's gone. And there's the family cat, in the corner, sedately washing it's face."
"The cat got the steak," Barney said.
"Did it? The guests are called in; they argue about it. The steak is gone, all five pounds of it; there sits the cat, looking well-fed and cheerful. "Weigh the cat," someone says. They've had a few drinks; it looks like a good idea. So they go into the bathroom and weigh the cat on the scales. It reads exactly five pounds. They all perceive this reading and a guest says, "okay, that's it. There's the steak." They're satisfied that they know what happened, now; they've got empirical proof. Then a qualm comes to one of them and he says, puzzled, "But where's the cat?
”
”
Philip K. Dick (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)
“
The fact is, I love to feed other people. I love their pleasure, their comfort, their delight in being cared for. Cooking gives me the means to make other people feel better, which in a very simple equation makes me feel better. I believe that food can be a profound means of communication, allowing me to express myself in a way that seems much deeper and more sincere than words. My Gruyere cheese puffs straight from the oven say 'I'm glad you're here. Sit down, relax. I'll look after everything.'
- Ann Patchett, "Dinner For One, Please, James
”
”
Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)
“
You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but “didn’t have time to read,” I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in … Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway.
”
”
Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)
“
When my husband had an affair with someone else I watched his eyes glaze over when we ate dinner together and I heard him singing to himself without me, and when he tended the garden it was not for me.
He was courteous and polite; he enjoyed being at home, but in the fantasy of his home I was not the one who sat opposite him and laughed at his jokes. He didn't want to change anything; he liked his life. The only thing he wanted to change was me.
It would have been better if he had hated me, or if he had abused me, or if he had packed his new suitcases and left.
As it was he continued to put his arm round me and talk about being a new wall to replace the rotten fence that divided our garden from his vegetable patch. I knew he would never leave our house. He had worked for it.
Day by day I felt myself disappearing. For my husband I was no longer a reality, I was one of the things around him. I was the fence which needed to be replaced. I watched myself in the mirror and saw that I was mo longer vivid and exciting. I was worn and gray like an old sweater you can't throw out but won't put on.
He admitted he was in love with her, but he said he loved me.
Translated, that means, I want everything. Translated, that means, I don't want to hurt you yet. Translated, that means, I don't know what to do, give me time.
Why, why should I give you time? What time are you giving me? I am in a cell waiting to be called for execution.
I loved him and I was in love with him. I didn't use language to make a war-zone of my heart.
'You're so simple and good,' he said, brushing the hair from my face.
He meant, Your emotions are not complex like mine. My dilemma is poetic.
But there was no dilemma. He no longer wanted me, but he wanted our life
Eventually, when he had been away with her for a few days and returned restless and conciliatory, I decided not to wait in my cell any longer. I went to where he was sleeping in another room and I asked him to leave. Very patiently he asked me to remember that the house was his home, that he couldn't be expected to make himself homeless because he was in love.
'Medea did,' I said, 'and Romeo and Juliet and Cressida, and Ruth in the Bible.'
He asked me to shut up. He wasn't a hero.
'Then why should I be a heroine?'
He didn't answer, he plucked at the blanket.
I considered my choices.
I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated.
I could leave and be unhappy and dignified.
I could Beg him to touch me again.
I could live in hope and die of bitterness.
I took some things and left. It wasn't easy, it was my home too.
I hear he's replaced the back fence.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Sexing the Cherry)
“
Fussing over food was important. It gave a shape to the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner; beginning, middle, end.
”
”
Robert Hellenga (Philosophy Made Simple)
“
We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship.
”
”
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“
Each day is a revelation, every moment a gift. The simple act of sitting across the dinner table from his daughter and listening to her talk about her day feels like a pardon. How could he ever have taken even one second of it for granted?
”
”
Blake Crouch (Recursion)
“
My mother is a big fan of precision, and tries her best to maintain it. Unfortunately, her own incompetence gets in the way. Dinner is served, except when a can won't open. That's the way she is: fine unless something goes wrong and that minor obstacle becomes a huge wall she can't scale. She becomes helpless whenever things don't go smoothly, or exactly as she imagined them.
”
”
Gregory Galloway (As Simple as Snow)
“
You better have some skills in this world. You better bring something to the dinner party or you will be the dinner.
”
”
Bryant McGill (Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life)
“
There is no simple beauty in perfection.
”
”
Rebecca Serle (The Dinner List)
“
Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy
"To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the houselhold's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scraches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the great liberties of being alone ... It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else's tastes into account or explain why I like to drink my grapefruit juice out of the carton." - Ann Patchett, "Dinner for One, Please, James
”
”
Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)
“
Can’t you make yourself likeable? Can’t you even try?” Something shifted in Tavi then. She was always so flippant, trailing sarcasm behind her like a duchess trailing furs. But not this time. Hugo had pierced her armor and blood was dripping from the wound. “Try for whom, Hugo?” she repeated, her voice raw. “For the rich boys who get to go to the Sorbonne even though they’re too stupid to solve a simple quadratic equation? For the viscount I was seated next to at a dinner who tried to put his hand up my skirt through all five courses? For the smug society ladies who look me up and down and purse their lips and say no, I won’t do for their sons because my chin is too pointed, my nose is too large, I talk too much about numbers?” “Tavi …” Isabelle whispered. She went to her, tried to put an arm around her, but Tavi shook her off. “I wanted books. I wanted maths and science. I wanted an education,” Tavi said, her eyes bright with emotion. “I got corsets and gowns and high-heeled slippers instead. It made me sad, Hugo. And then it made me angry. So no, I can’t make myself likeable. I’ve tried. Over and over. It doesn’t work. If I don’t like who I am, why should you?
”
”
Jennifer Donnelly (Stepsister)
“
But after a couple of weeks of listing things I was grateful for, I came to see that the little things were everything. The little things were what I held on to at the end of the day. Single jokes that gave me the giggles. A beautiful flower arrangement, viewed through the window of a café. The fact that my cat came to cuddle me when she saw I was sad. These things gave me hope, pleasure, solace. Together, they added up to a fulfilling life. If a simple flower arrangement could make this world just a little more bearable, then perhaps my own small actions meant more than I was giving them credit for. Maybe when I made dinner, or listened to a friend rant, or complimented a woman on her incredible garden, I was helping make this world survivable for others. Perhaps that evening, when tallying up their own wins and losses for the day, someone would think of something I’d done and smile.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
Reg: Speaking of blunt, dinner is on my bill tonight, mes amis.
Alex: What's the occasion?
Augustus: Lady Caroline's agreed to venture out on a picnic with out intrepid hero.
Kit: I don't know why you keep insisting she's smitten with me. I've barely spoken five sentences to her.
Augustus: It's very simple. Reg has thrown his entire being into pleasing Caroline. She knows every nuance of his thought and character. You, however, are a mystery to be explored, solved, and resolved.
”
”
Suzanne Enoch (Lady Rogue)
“
Here are the essentials of a happy life,
my dear friend: money not worked for,
but inherited; some land not unproductive;
a hearth fire always going; law suits never;
the toga rarely worn; a calm mind;
a gentleman’s strong and healthy body;
circumspect candor, friends who are your equals;
relaxed dinner parties, a simple table,
nights not drunken, but free from anxieties;
a marriage bed not prudish, and yet modest;
plenty of sleep to make the dark hours short. Wish
to be what you are, and prefer nothing more.
Don’t fear your last day, or hope for it either.
Translated from original text:
Vitam quae faciant beatiorem,
Iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt:
Res non parta labore, sed relicta;
Non ingratus ager, focus perennis;
Lis numquam, toga rara, mens quieta;
Vires ingenuae, salubre corpus;
Prudens simplicitas, pares amici;
Convictus facilis, sine arte mensa;
Nox non ebria, sed soluta curis;
Non tristis torus, et tamen pudicus;
Somnus, qui faciat breves tenebras:
Quod sis, esse velis nihilque malis;
Summum nec metuas diem nec optes.
”
”
Marcus Valerius Martialis
“
The rest of the family tree had a root system soggy with alcohol... One aunt had fallen asleep with her face in the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner; another's fondness for Coors was so unwavering that I can still remember the musky smell of the beer and the coldness of the cans. Most of the men drank the way all Texas men drank, or so I believed, which meant that they were tough guys who could hold their liquor until they couldn't anymore--a capacity that often led to some cloudy version of doom, be it financial ruin or suicide or the lesser betrayal of simple estrangement. Both social drinkers, my parents had eluded these tragic endings; in the postwar Texas of suburbs and cocktails, their drinking was routine but undramatic.
”
”
Gail Caldwell (Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship)
“
She wore her best dinner dress, made of silk dyed in a fashionable shade called bois de rose, a deep earthy pink that flattered her fair complexion. It was a severely simple style, with a low square-cut bodice and skirts pulled back tightly to reveal the shape of her waist and hips.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
“
Bluntly and quietly, in a series of simple, forthright sentences, she dismantled the architecture of unhappiness that had been growing up around us for the past several days. She was calling from the office she said, and had to talk in a low voice, 'but if you can hear me, Sid' she began, 'there are four things I want you to know. First, I haven't stopped thinking about you since I left the house this morning. Second, I've decided to have the baby, and we're never going to use the word "abortion" again. Third, don't bother to make dinner. [...] Fourth, make sure Mr. Johnson's ready for action. I'm going to attack you the minute I walk in the door, my love, so be prepared.
”
”
Paul Auster (Oracle Night)
“
Just get to lunch,” I muttered to myself.
It was the only way I could control my anxiety. In 1998, I’d made it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, or BUD/S, by focusing on just making it to the next meal. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t feel my arms as we hoisted logs over our heads or if the cold surf soaked me to the core. It wasn’t going to last forever. There is a saying: “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is simple: “One bite at a time.” Only my bites were separated by meals: Make it to breakfast, train hard until lunch, and focus until dinner. Repeat.
”
”
Mark Owen (No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden)
“
What is love? Is it a lightning bolt that instantaneously unites two souls in utter infatuation and admiration through the meeting of a simple innocent stare? Or is it a lustful seed that is sown in a dark dingy bar one sweaty summer's night only to be nurtured with romantic rendezvous as it matures into a beautiful flower? Is it a river springing forth, creating lifelong bonds through experiences, heartaches, and missed opportunities? Or is it a thunderstorm that slowly rolls in, climaxing with an awesome display of unbridled passion, only to succumb to its inevitable fade into the distance? I define love as education....
It teaches us to learn from our opportunities, and made the stupidest of decisions for the rightest of reasons. It gives us a hint of what "it" should be and feel like, but then encourages us to think outside the box and develop our own understanding of what "it" could be. Those that choose to embrace and learn from love's educational peaks and valleys are the ones that will eventually find true love, that one in a million. Those that don't are destined to be consumed with the inevitable ring around the rosy of fake I love you's and failed relationships. I have been lucky enough to have some of the most amazing teachers throughout my romantic evolution and it is to them that I dedicate this book. The lessons in life, passion and love they taught me have helped shape who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. To the love that stains my heart, but defines my soul....I thank you.....
”
”
Ivan Rusilko (Appetizers (The Winemaker's Dinner, #1))
“
Maybe physical intimacy isn't always about touching. Maybe it's also about being able to sit next to someone at dinner and not care if he takes something off your plate or reaches across you for the salt. Maybe it's about being able to sprawl out on the floor and read a book in the same room with someone who's grading papers and muttering about 'incompetent boobs who couldn't write a good paper if their lives depended on it.' Maybe it's about sharing the same space with another person and not going fucking crazy because you can't get away from them.
That's it, I guess: true intimacy is really just the run of the mill, day to day stuff that happens without thinking—thousands of simple, meaningless, comfortable ways you can be close to someone, never dreaming how shitty you'll feel when you wake up one morning with all of it gone.
”
”
Bart Yates (Leave Myself Behind)
“
When it was cooler, Trazada made a simple meal of sausage, cheese, and bread. She had schooled herself to wait dinner until hunger urged her to eat; it gave seasoning to poor food that no spice could furnish.
("The Generalissimo's Butterfly")
”
”
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (Cautionary Tales)
“
She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.
”
”
Erica Bauermeister (Joy for Beginners)
“
Dinner that night is a feast of flavor. To celebrate the successful exorcism, Kagura has cooked several more dishes than the shrine's usual, simple fare- fragrant onigiri, balls of rice soaked in green tea, with umeboshi- salty and pickled plums- as filling. There is eggplant simmered in clear soup, green beans in sesame sause, and burdock in sweet-and-sour dressing. The mood is festive.
”
”
Rin Chupeco (The Girl from the Well (The Girl from the Well, #1))
“
One day it’s 12:27 am, and you’re sad. Not because of how life is treating you or anything. It’s just because you want someone next to you. Someone, who at the end of the day, will look at you and smile, asking what you want to have for dinner. You’ll realize that you are longing for love, a comfortable and simple love; one that gives you a reason to shut off the computer and just have a conversation. You want a companion who will be there, who will be willing to give you space and who will also keep you close. It’s hard, because as you think, the clock slowly turns to 12:30am, and you are just tired of trying, and you just want it to happen. But it will, and you’ll look back at these late nights, and smile; wishing you could tell your single self that it’s going to be okay, that all the “No’s” were leading you to a beautiful yes. So, as it gets later, you just need to remember that your sadness will be replaced with an overwhelming gratitude that you are loved; and that will be better than all the missed opportunities and made up dreams that you had.
”
”
T.B. LaBerge (Unwritten Letters to You)
“
I think how heavenly it must be to nibble on tiny cakes and swirled caramels and plum ginger puffs all day. Tea with lemon petit fours in the afternoon; after-dinner mint truffles with butterscotch coffee in the evening. My mind swims with the notion of it. The easy, sugar-induced lull that would follow me into candy-tinted dreams each night. Life here, in Valentine's Town, would surely be simple and uncomplicated.
”
”
Shea Ernshaw (Long Live the Pumpkin Queen: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas)
“
Just the minute another person is drawn into some one's life, there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities, and from such a simple beginning as sexual desire we find built up such alarming yet familiar phenomena as fetes, divertissements, telephone conversations, arrangements, plans, sacrifices, train arrivals, meetings, appointments, tardiness, delays, marriages, dinners, small pets and animals, calumny, children, music lessons, yellow shades for the windows, evasions, lethargy, cigarettes, candies, repetition of stories and anecdotes, infidelity, ineptitude, incompatibility, bronchial trouble, and many others, all of which are entirely foreign to the original urge and way off the subject.
”
”
E.B. White (Is Sex Necessary? or Why You Feel the Way You Do)
“
Complexity and simplicity,” he replied. “Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.
”
”
Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
“
To understand, I destroyed myself. To understand is to forget about loving. I know nothing more simultaneously false and telling than the statement by Leonardo da Vinci that we cannot love or hate something until we’ve understood it.
Solitude devastates me; company oppresses me. The presence of another person derails my thoughts; I dream of the other’s presence with a strange absent-mindedness that no amount of my analytical scrutiny can define.
Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness. The presence of another person – of any person whatsoever – instantly slows down my thinking, and while for a normal man contact with others is a stimulus to spoken expression and wit, for me it is a counterstimulus, if this compound word be linguistically permissible. When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Yes, talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial, and in them intelligence gleams like an image in a mirror.
The mere thought of having to enter into contact with someone else makes me nervous. A simple invitation to have dinner with a friend produces an anguish in me that’s hard to define. The idea of any social obligation whatsoever – attending a funeral, dealing with someone about an office matter, going to the station to wait for someone I know or don’t know – the very idea disturbs my thoughts for an entire day, and sometimes I even start worrying the night before, so that I sleep badly. When it takes place, the dreaded encounter is utterly insignificant, justifying none of my anxiety, but the next time is no different: I never learn to learn.
‘My habits are of solitude, not of men.’ I don’t know if it was Rousseau or Senancour who said this. But it was some mind of my species, it being perhaps too much to say of my race.
”
”
Fernando Pessoa
“
Step 1: Learn First you must identify the topic you want to understand, research it thoroughly and grasp it from every direction. Step 2: Teach it to a child Secondly, you should write the idea down as if you were teaching it to a child; use simple words, fewer words and simple concepts. Step 3: Share it Convey your idea to others; post it online, post it on your blog, share it on stage or even at the dinner table. Choose any medium where you’ll get clear feedback. Step 4: Review Review the feedback; did people understand the concept from your explanation? Can they explain it to you after you’ve explained it to them? If not, go back to step 1; if they did, move on.
”
”
Steven Bartlett (The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life)
“
Complicated? You go to dinner with Andrew Brenner and you fuck me? No, that's not complicated," he smiled bitterly. "I mean this is fun and all, Hadley. This is really fucking great. But, don’t tell me you don't date people when all you really mean is you don't take me seriously. And don't tell me something is complicated when it's actually really simple.
”
”
Audrey Bell (Love Show)
“
Dinner that evening is a simple affair: canned peaches and cold canned chili and half an apple each.
”
”
J.D. Palmer (The Meek (Unbound Trilogy, #1))
“
My formula for everyday cooking: keep it simple yet satisfying, the quicker and easier the better, use real food ingredients, and include at least one vegetable.
”
”
Alyce Alexandra (Quick Dinners in the Thermomix)
“
#13. Make a “real people first” rule Consider making a personal commitment to avoid social media when you are in the presence of friends and family. If your spouse or kids are around, no checking Facebook. If you’re out to dinner with friends, no sneaking a peek at the Instagram that just popped in. Be fully present with the real people in your life rather than distracted by your virtual friends.
”
”
S.J. Scott (10-Minute Digital Declutter: The Simple Habit to Eliminate Technology Overload)
“
To me, living a rich life means focusing on the minutiae, the seemingly small, insignificant moments that can pass us by if we don't watch carefully. They're the quiet, chilly morning walks with my [dog]; the adventure of going for a bike ride in a new part of town; cooking a dinner alongside my boyfriend; or even the simple activity of crimping a pie crust. These moments don't require much, just a little planning and attention.
”
”
Adrianna Adarme
“
I talk about these mysterious forces all the time with my chef cronies. Nothing illustrates them more than the Last Meal Game. You're getting into the electric chair tomorrow morning. They're gonna strap you down, turn up the juice and fry your ass until your eyes sizzle and pop like McNuggets. You've got one meal left. What are you having for dinner? When playing this game with chefs - and we're talking good chefs here- the answers are invariable simple ones.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines)
“
Another time, the power cut out and we dug up a headlamp and a few candles from one of the still-unpacked moving boxes. While the storm went on outside, we went round and placed the candles at various guiding points throughout the house. When I lit them in the kitchen, it smelled briefly of birthday cakes. I remember cooking a simple dinner, pulling the skins off the tomatoes in the near darkness, going by feel rather than by sight. Laurie had put the record player on, and danced slowly and achingly in front of the cat, who continued to glower from her cushion on the floor. We could barely see the food on the table, noticing only the shapes and textures of the vegetables in their bowls. I had taken the washing in and sheets were hung and draped over the rack, a ladder, a glass door. Outside, we could hear that the wind was strong, but inside it was still. I remembered thinking, as we ate, how such happiness could come from such simple things." (71)
”
”
Jessica Au (Cold Enough for Snow)
“
That was her entire dinner. It was a simple meal, but ideal for preventing constipation. Constipation was one of the things she hated most in the world, on par with despicable men who commit domestic violence and narrow-minded religious fundamentalists.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
For example: never underestimate the formative power of the family supper table. This vanishing liturgy is a powerful site of formation. Most of the time it will be hard to keep the cathedral in view, especially when dinner is the primary occasion for sibling bickering. Yet even then, members of your little tribe are learning to love their neighbor. And your children are learning something about the faithful promises of a covenant-keeping Lord in the simple routine of that daily promise of dinner together. Then
”
”
James K.A. Smith (You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit)
“
I let them do some simple arithmetic. In a group of one hundred people, how many assholes are there? How many fathers who humiliate their children? How many morons whose breath stinks like rotten meat but who refuse to do anything about it? How many hopeless cases who go on complaining all their lives about the non-existent injustices they’ve had to suffer? Look around you, I said. How many of your classmates would you be pleased not to see return to their desks tomorrow morning? Think about that one family member of your own family, that irritating uncle with his pointless, horseshit stories at birthday parties, that ugly cousin who mistreats his cat. Think about how relieved you would be - and not only you, but virtually the entire family - if that uncle or cousin would step on a landmine or be hit by a five-hundred-pounder dropped from a high altitude. If that member of the family were to be wiped off the face of the earth. And now think about all those millions of victims of all the wars there have been in the past - I never specifically mentioned the Second World War, I used it as an example because it’s the one that most appeals to their imaginations - and think about the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of victims who we need to have around like we need a hole in the head. Even from a purely statistical standpoint, it’s impossible that all those victims were good people, whatever kind of people that may be. The injustice is found more in the fact that the assholes are also put on the list of innocent victims. That their names are also chiselled into the war memorials.
”
”
Herman Koch (The Dinner)
“
I'm over it. All the little costs of having ADHD that add up in the long run. Lost customers. Overdue bills. Replacement phone chargers. Time spent looking for things. The way it makes me feel, like a child. As if everyone else is a real adult and I'm just pretending. The frustration that I can't do the simple, everyday things that most people can. Like laundry, and making phone calls, and remembering to take out something from the freezer for dinner. It's the missed deadlines for opportunities I could've had. The broken relationships. How people think I'm lazy and selfish. How they think I don't care. How I think I'm lazy and selfish, even though I know I care.
”
”
Sarah Grunder Ruiz (Last Call at the Local (Love, Lists & Fancy Ships, #3))
“
Nothing fills Vera with quite as much joy as watching loved ones eat her food. It’s one of the many things she misses about Jinlong and Tilly. When it was the three of them at home, she’d cook every day and watch as Jinlong and Tilly ate, and food always tasted so much better that way. Living alone, Vera finds that much of the joy of cooking has leached out of her, to the point where she mostly eats plain rice and simple sauteed vegetables for dinner. Why bother cooking elaborate meals for just one person? But now she has so many people to cook for. Her days are filled to bursting and she’s constantly rushing here and there, and she can’t possibly be happier than this.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
When, in the morning at sunrise, I go out to Walheim, and with my own hands gather in the garden the peas which are to serve for my dinner, when I sit down to shell them, and read my Homer during the intervals, and then, selecting a saucepan from the kitchen, fetch my own butter, put my mess on the fire, cover it up, and sit down to stir it as occasion requires, I figure to myself the illustrious suitors of Penelope, killing, dressing, and preparing their own oxen and swine. Nothing fills me with a more pure and genuine sense of happiness than those traits of patriarchal life which, thank Heaven! I can imitate without affectation. Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
“
Laura, that dress is not suitable for today, I’m afraid. It’s only a small dinner party,” I said, hastily stuffing it into the abyss of her wardrobe in exchange for a simple, undecorated blue dress, which would, as Laura passionately claimed, “accentuate her sapphire orbs so Mr. Edwards could not look away.” I sincerely hoped she meant her eyes.
”
”
Tarun Shanker (These Vicious Masks (These Vicious Masks, #1))
“
Almost 60 percent of women marry down, meaning most women go for a man with the dad bod. The guy who is more than likely going to make less than them; never work out; eat hot dogs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and, let’s face it, need Viagra by age forty. All it takes is a simple Internet search to get the facts. Women are, by nature, insecure creatures, and if by the tender age of thirty-five they haven’t settled down, they’ll most likely marry the guy with the unfortunate bald spot and a heart of gold. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s kind of like when you go to the pound and pick the dog with the lazy eye because you feel sorry for it, and you know without a doubt that bastard will never stray.
”
”
Rachel Van Dyken (The Matchmaker's Playbook (Wingmen Inc., #1))
“
ain’t that simple anymore. What people call love now is merely infatuation—more about themselves than trying to actually get to know a person. Whatever happened to asking someone out to dinner, walking you up to your porch to make sure you get in safe, having picnics in the park, or passing notes to profess your love? Whatever happened to love that isn’t superficial?
”
”
Ebony LaDelle (Love Radio)
“
She turned to put the basket of bread on the table and saw Brian, and the clutch of mums and zinnias he held in his hand.
"It seemed to call for them," he said.
She stared at the cheerful fall bloossoms, then up into his face. "You picked me flowers."
The sheer disbelief in her voice had him moving his shoulders restlessly. "Well,you made me dinner, with wine and candles and the whole of it. Bedsides, they're your flowers anyway."
"No,they're not." Drowning in love she set the basket down, waited. "Until you give them to me."
"I'll never understand why women are so sensitive over posies." He held them out.
"Thank you." She closed her eyes, buried her face in them. She wanted to remember the exact fragrance, the exact texture. Then lowering them again, she lifted her mouth to his for a kiss. Rubbed her cheek against his.
His arms came around her so suddenly, so tightly, she gasped. "Brian? What is it?"
That gesture,the simple and sweet gesture of cheek against cheek nearly destroyed him. "It's nothing. I just like the way you feel against me when I hold you."
"Hold me any tighter,I'll be through you.
”
”
Nora Roberts (Irish Rebel (Irish Hearts, #3))
“
I love food, I love everything about food – the growing, the purchasing, the cooking, the eating, the nourishment, the connection, the celebration. To me, food is so central to everything important in life – how we eat and how we feed others is such a strong reflection on who we are, our values, and how we live. And we get to express and enjoy this three times every single day!
”
”
Alyce Alexandra (Everyday Thermo Cooking: 100 Simple and Satisfying Real-Life Recipes from My Kitchen)
“
Cultivate gratitude. Carve out an hour a day for solitude. Begin and end the day with prayer, meditation, reflection. Keep it simple. Keep your house picked up. Don’t overschedule. Strive for realistic deadlines. Never make a promise you can’t keep. Allow an extra half hour for everything you do. Create quiet surroundings at home and at work. Go to bed at nine o’clock twice a week. Always carry something interesting to read. Breathe—deeply and often. Move—walk, dance, run, find a sport you enjoy. Drink pure spring water. Lots of it. Eat only when hungry. If it’s not delicious, don’t eat it. Be instead of do. Set aside one day a week for rest and renewal. Laugh more often. Luxuriate in your senses. Always opt for comfort. If you don’t love it, live without it. Let Mother Nature nurture. Don’t answer the telephone during dinner. Stop trying to please everybody. Start pleasing yourself. Stay away from negative people. Don’t squander precious resources: time, creative energy, emotion. Nurture friendships. Don’t be afraid of your passion. Approach problems as challenges. Honor your aspirations. Set achievable goals. Surrender expectations.
”
”
Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy)
“
When I was a kid, summers were the most glorious time of life. Because my parents believed in hands-off, free-range parenting, I’d usually be out the door before ten and wouldn’t return until dinner. There were no cell phones to keep track of me and whenever my mom called a neighbor to ask where I was, the neighbor was often just as clueless as to her own child’s whereabouts. In fact, there was only one rule as far as I could tell: I had to be home at half past five, since my parents liked to eat dinner as a family. I can’t remember exactly how I used to spend those days. I have recollections in snapshot form: building forts or playing king of the hill on the high part of the jungle gym or chasing after a soccer ball while attempting to score. I remember playing in the woods, too. Back then, our home was surrounded by undeveloped land, and my friends and I would have dirt-clod wars or play capture the flag; when we got BB guns, we could spend hours shooting cans and occasionally shooting at each other. I spent hours exploring on my bicycle, and whole weeks would pass where I’d wake every morning with nothing scheduled at all. Of course, there were kids in the neighborhood who didn’t lead that sort of carefree existence. They would head off to camp or participate in summer leagues for various sports, but back then, kids like that were the minority. These days, kids are scheduled from morning to night because parents have demanded it, and London has been no exception. But how did it happen? And why? What changed the outlook of parents in my generation? Peer pressure? Living vicariously through a child’s success? Résumé building for college? Or was it simply fear that if their kids were allowed to discover the world on their own, nothing good would come of it? I don’t know. I am, however, of the opinion that something has been lost in the process: the simple joy of waking in the morning and having nothing whatsoever to do.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (Two By Two)
“
No stories! No stories! Imagine a world without stories!
But that’s exactly what you would have, if all the women were wise.
The Wise Virgins keep their lamps trimmed and filled with oil, and the bridegroom arrives, in the proper way, knocking at the front door, in time for his dinner;
no fuss, no muss, and also no story at all.
What can be told about the Wise Virgins, such bloodless paragons?
They bite their tongues, they watch their smart mouths, they sew their own clothing,
they achieve professional recognition, they do every right thing without effort.
Somehow they are insupportable: they have no narrative vices:
their wise smiles are too knowing, too knowing about us and our stupidities.
We suspect them of having mean hearts.
They are far too clever, not for their own good but for ours.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Good Bones and Simple Murders)
“
THE BUTCHER AND THE DIETITIAN A good friend of mine recently forwarded me a YouTube video entitled The Butcher vs. the Dietitian, a two-minute cartoon that effectively and succinctly highlighted the major difference between a broker and a legal fiduciary. The video made the glaringly obvious point that when you walk into a butcher shop, you are always encouraged to buy meat. Ask a butcher what’s for dinner, and the answer is always “Meat!” But a dietitian, on the other hand, will advise you to eat what’s best for your health. She has no interest in selling you meat if fish is better for you. Brokers are butchers, while fiduciaries are dietitians. They have no “dog in the race” to sell you a specific product or fund. This simple distinction gives you a position of power! Insiders know the difference.
”
”
Anthony Robbins (MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (Tony Robbins Financial Freedom))
“
A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?
”
”
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
“
Lou recovered some foie gras, duck confit, and assorted veggies and herbs. As she grabbed the items, a menu started bubbling to the surface: foie gras ravioli with a cherry-sage cream sauce, crispy goat cheese medallions on mixed greens with a simple vinaigrette, pan-fried duck confit, and duck-fat-roasted new potatoes with more of the cherry-sage cream sauce. For dessert, a chocolate souffle with coconut crisps.
”
”
Amy E. Reichert (The Coincidence of Coconut Cake)
“
If you had any ingredients at your disposal, what would you make?"
"You said it was a small dinner?"
"Yes," he affirmed.
"In that case, I would begin with a gustatio of salad with peppers and cucumbers, melon with mint, whole-meal bread, soft cheese, and honey cake." I tried to draw on my memory of one of the last meals I'd made for Maximus.
Apicius licked his lips. "Yes, yes, go on."
"Then pomegranate ice to cleanse the palate, followed by a cena prima of saffron chickpeas, Parthian chicken, peppered morels in wine, mussels, and oysters. If I had more time, I would also serve a stuffed suckling pig. And to close, a pear patina, along with deep-fried honey fritters, snails, olives, and, if you have it on hand, some wine from Chios or Puglia."
"Perfect. Simple and the flavors would blend nicely at the beginning of the meal.
”
”
Crystal King (Feast of Sorrow)
“
It then begins to be Miss Tox’s occupation to prepare little dainties—or what are such to her—to be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright at every sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor simple woman.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son)
“
She knew what he was about to say, that she gave him practically nothing in the way of affection, but he wouldn't say it, because he knew very well that she wasn't in love with him, so why did he really expect her affection? Yet the simple fact that she wasn't in love with him made Therese feel guilty, guilty about accepting anything from him, a birthday present, or an invitation to dinner at his family's, or even his time.
”
”
Patricia Highsmith (The Price of Salt)
“
There is one notable exception to Jablonski and Chaplin’s equation—and it’s the exception that proves the rule. The Inuit—the indigenous people of the subarctic—are dark-skinned, despite the limited sunlight of their home. If you think something fishy’s going on here, you’re right. But the reason they don’t need to evolve the lighter skin necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D production is refreshingly simple. Their diet is full of fatty fish—which just happens to be one of the only foods in nature that is chock-full of vitamin D. They eat vitamin D for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so they don’t need to make it. If you ever had a grandmother from the Old World try to force cod liver oil down your throat, she was onto something for the same reason—since it’s full of vitamin D, cod liver oil was one of the best ways to prevent rickets, especially before milk was routinely fortified with it. IF YOU’RE WONDERING how people who have dark skin make enough vitamin D despite the fact that their skin blocks all those ultraviolet rays, you’re asking the right questions. Remember, ultraviolet rays that penetrate the skin destroy folate—and ultraviolet rays that penetrate the skin are necessary to create vitamin D. Dark skin evolved to protect folate, but it didn’t evolve
”
”
Sharon Moalem (Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease)
“
HYGGE TIP: CREATE A COOKING CLUB A few years ago, I wanted to create some kind of system that would mean I would get to see some of my good friends on a regular basis, so we formed a cooking club. This was in part prompted by my work, as the importance of our relationships always emerges as a key indicator of why some people are happier than others. Furthermore, I wanted to organize the cooking club in a way that maximized the hygge. So instead of taking turns being the host and cooking for the five or six other people, we always cook together. That is where the hygge is. The rules are simple. Each time there is a theme, or a key ingredient—for example, duck or sausages—each person brings ingredients to make a small dish to fit the theme. It creates a very relaxed, informal, egalitarian setting, where no one person has to cater for the guests—or live up to the standards of the last fancy dinner party.
”
”
Meik Wiking (The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living)
“
A Mother’s Advice
Manners matter, regardless of your position in society. There is no excuse in this world to practice bad manners, especially at the table. I found that out in high school. I was invited to my boyfriend’s house for dinner. His parents were somewhat formal, and I knew the dinner would be “fancy,” at least in my mind. My family wasn’t upper class (or even middle class), and my mother never had what would be called “social graces.”
Before I left, my mother gave me a piece of advice: hold your head high, be quiet, and take the lead from his mother. Even though I was scared to death, I did what my mother advised and got through the experience with flying colors.
To this day, my mother’s advice has gotten me through many difficult situations, especially ones that are totally new to me! With my mother’s simple advice, I know I could dine with the Queen of England, just by following her lead. Thanks, Mother!
-Deborah Ford
”
”
Deborah Ford (Grits (Girls Raised in the South) Guide to Life)
“
The phrase was so simple and for most women, so generic. Any other female would have laughed off such a question from a boy she had no interest in. But in my case, it was a landmark moment in my life. Number 23 had gone where no other man had gone before.
Until then, my history with men had been volatile. Instead of a boyfriend or even a drunken prom date, my virginity was forfeited to a very disturbed, grown man while I was unconscious on a bathroom floor. The remnants of what could be considered high school relationships were blurry and drug infused. Even the one long-lasting courtship I held with Number 3 went without traditional dating rituals like Valentine’s Day, birthdays, anniversary gifts, or even dinner.
Into young adulthood, I was never the girl who men asked on dates. I was asked on many fucks. I was a pair of tits to cum on, a mouth to force a cock down, and even a playmate to spice up a marriage.
At twenty-four, I had slept with twenty-two men, gotten lustfully heated with countless more, but had never once been given flowers. With less than a handful of dates in my past, romance was something I accepted as not being in the cards for me. My personality was too strong, my language too foul, and my opinions too outspoken. No, I was not the girl who got asked out on dates and though that made me sad at times, I buried myself too deeply in productivity to dwell on it.
But, that day, Number 23 sparked a fuse. That question showed a glimmer of a simplistic sweetness that men never gave me. Suddenly he went from being some Army kid to the boyfriend I never had.
”
”
Maggie Georgiana Young (Just Another Number)
“
Whatever it is, I cannot seem to pull off something as simple as dinner between the two of us. As you know, my first attempt ended with us eating pizza standing up (and her paying for her own slice).
My second attempt was even worse: We spent most of the evening in an animal hospital. And then I very suavely added insult to injury by sexually harassing her on Max Friedlander’s aunt’s couch. She fled, in romance-novel vernacular, like a startled fawn. As well she should have: I’m sure I must have seemed like a teenager in postprom heat.
”
”
Meg Cabot (The Boy Next Door (Boy, #1))
“
Ask yourself what you’re really trying to get from the other person in this interaction. Be honest. If it’s your parent, do you want your parent to listen to you? Understand you? Regret his or her behavior? Apologize to you? Make amends? If your goal involves empathy or a change of heart on your parent’s part, stop right there and come up with a different goal—one that’s specific and achievable. Remember, you can’t expect immature, emotionally phobic people to be different from how they are. However, you can set a specific goal for the interaction. Identify the specific outcome you want from each interaction and set it as a goal. Here are some examples: “I express myself to my mother even though I’m nervous.” “I tell my parents I’m not coming home for Christmas.” “I ask my father to talk nicely to my children.” Your goal might be just to express your feelings. This is achievable because you can ask others to listen, even though you can’t make them understand. Or your goal might be as simple as reaching an agreement about where the family will have Thanksgiving dinner. The key is to go into the interaction always knowing the end point you wish to arrive at.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
Just a few nights ago the roaring fire prompted a conversation about Gaston Bachelard's Psychoanalysis of Fire,' I said to Foucault. 'Did you by any chance know Bachelard?'
'Yes, I did,' Foucault responded. 'He was my teacher and exerted a great influence upon me.'
'I can just visualize Bachelard musing before his hearth and devising the startling thesis that mankind tamed fire to stimulate his daydreaming, that man is fundamentally the dreaming animal.'
'Not really,' Foucault blurted out. 'Bachelard probably never saw a fireplace or ever listened to water streaming down a mountainside. With him it was all a dream. He lived very ascetically in a cramped two-room flat he shared with his sister.'
'I have read somewhere that he was a gourmet and would shop every day in the street markets to get the freshest produce for his dinner.'
'Well, he undoubtedly shopped in the outdoor markets,' Foucault responded impatiently, 'but his cuisine, like his regimen, was very plain. He led a simple life and existed in his dream.'
'Do you shop in the outdoor markets in Paris?' Jake asked Michel.
'No,' Foucault laughed, 'I just go to the supermarket down the street from where I live.
”
”
Simeon Wade (Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death])
“
And Cyrus, they say, observed: 'How much trouble you have at your dinner, grandfather, if you have to reach out your hands to all these dishes and taste all these different kinds of food!'
'Why so?' said Astyages. 'Really now, don't you think this dinner much finer than your Persian dinners?'
'No, grandfather,' Cyrus replied to this; 'but the road to satiety is much more simple and direct in our country than with you; for bread and meat take us there; but you, though you make for the same goal as we, go wandering through many a maze, up and down, and only arrive at last at the point that we long since have reached.
”
”
Xenophon (Cyropaedia Volume 1, books 1-4)
“
keep getting asked by letter and on the street by Jane and John Does dressed in spandex how they can prepare simple “gourmet” dinners in ten minutes so as to prolong, presumably, their cross-training and spritzer-drinking binges, massage and colonic appointments, drumming and marriage-counseling sessions, and tarot-card swap clubs. An easy answer here. Scoop ample quantities of Skippy on two paper plates. Handcuff each other and then slam your faces down into the plates with gusto. Good for the gluteus maximus. And it will bring you together at the sink, plus you won’t have to violate your space by answering the phone. Back to the
”
”
Jim Harrison (The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand)
“
Anything good on the trucks?"
"Some beautiful lake salmon, fresh asparagus, and new potatoes."
"New enough their skin is peeling?"
"Yes."
"I know what we're going to do today!" Lou felt the excitement surge. This was why she loved cooking: getting amazing fresh ingredients and making something extraordinary. Luella's traditional French menu didn't leave much room for creativity, so the daily special had become Lou's canvas, where she was limited only by her imagination and whims.
"We'll keep it a simple spring dinner. Roast the potatoes in butter, salt, and pepper. Maybe some thyme or tarragon, too. We'll top the salmon fillets with hollandaise and roast the asparagus.
”
”
Amy E. Reichert (The Coincidence of Coconut Cake)
“
Do it very gradually, a little bit more every day. That way, you’re less likely to experience intestinal distress. In other words, if your current diet is heavy on no-fiber foods such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, and cheese, and low-fiber foods such as white bread and white rice, don’t load up on bran cereal (35 grams dietary fiber per 3.5-ounce serving) or dried figs (9.3 grams per serving) all at once. Start by adding a serving of cornflakes (2.0 grams dietary fiber) at breakfast, maybe an apple (2.8 grams) at lunch, a pear (2.6 grams) at mid-afternoon, and a half cup of baked beans (7.7 grams) at dinner. Four simple additions, and already you’re up to 15 grams dietary fiber.
”
”
Carol Ann Rinzler (Nutrition for Dummies)
“
Tonight she'd share her idea with Chris over a rare family meal. In preparation, she was making scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, one of the few meals she could cook without setting off the fire alarms. She hated having to come up with meals day after day after day. Chris was the one who could cook- her talent was eating. But it didn't make sense for him to work full time and then cook dinner every night, so she did her best, mastering a few simple dishes like tacos and barbecue pork sandwiches. If it involved more than one pot, forget it. Too many ingredients? No way. Scrambled eggs with cheese and herbs was her specialty. The family called them "Katie eggs" because when Kate was four, it was all she could eat for six months, ergo MJ's mastery of them.
”
”
Amy E. Reichert (Luck, Love & Lemon Pie)
“
he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton
“
Enjoying the taste of toasted raisin bread or the humor in a cartoon may not seem like much, but simple pleasures like these ease emotional upsets, lift your mood, and enrich your life. They also provide health benefits, by releasing endorphins and natural opioids that shift you out of stressful, draining reactive states and into happier responsive ones. As a bonus, some pleasures—such as dancing, sex, your team winning a game of pick-up basketball, or laughing with friends—come with energizing feelings of vitality or passion that enhance long-term health. Opportunities for pleasure are all around you, especially if you include things like the rainbow glitter of the tiny grains of sand in a sidewalk, the sound of water falling into a tub, the sense of connection in talking with a friend, or the reassurance that comes from the stove working when you need to make dinner.
”
”
Rick Hanson (Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence)
“
Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry. I don't know what made me think of them. I had hidden them beneath several packages of dried pasta. Sam liked pistachio nuts. I bought them for a cake recipe I had seen in Gourmet. I stood up like a sleepwalker, my hands empty of sheets or shoes. I would take care of all this once the cake was in the oven. The recipe was from several months ago. I didn't remember which issue. I would find it. I would bake a cake.
My father liked exotic things. On the rare occasions we went out to dinner together over the years, he always wanted us to go to some little Ethiopian restaurant down a back alley or he would say he had to have Mongolian food. He would like this cake. It was Iranian. There was a full tablespoon of cardamom sifted in with the flour, and I could imagine that it would make the cake taste nearly peppered, which would serve to balance out all the salt. I stood in the kitchen, reading the magazine while the sharp husks of the nuts bit into the pads of my fingers. I rolled the nut meat between my palms until the bright spring green of the pistachios shone in my hands, a fist full of emeralds. I would grind the nuts into powder without letting them turn to paste. I would butter the parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan. It was the steps, the clear and simple rules baking, that soothed me. My father would love this cake, and my mother would find this cake interesting, and Sam wouldn't be crazy about it but he'd be hungry and have a slice anyway. Maybe I could convince Camille it wasn't a cake at all. Maybe I could bring them all together, or at least that's what I dreamed about while I measured out the oil.
”
”
Jeanne Ray (Eat Cake)
“
A second reason why it is hard to choose what is essential in the moment is as simple as an innate fear of social awkwardness. The fact is, we as humans are wired to want to get along with others. After all, thousands of years ago when we all lived in tribes of hunter gatherers, our survival depended on it. And while conforming to what people in a group expect of us – what psychologists call normative conformity – is no longer a matter of life and death, the desire is still deeply ingrained in us.7 This is why, whether it’s an old friend who invites you to dinner or a boss who asks you to take on an important and high-profile project, or a neighbour who begs you to help with the school cake sale, the very thought of saying no literally brings us physical discomfort. We feel guilty. We don’t want to let someone down. We are worried about damaging the relationship. But these emotions muddle our clarity. They distract us from the reality of the fact that either we can say no and regret it for a few minutes, or we can say yes and regret it for days, weeks, months, or even years.
”
”
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
“
They passed each other at the door, she going out, and he returning from work. Unselfconsciously she put one hand up to his left cheek and, in passing, kissed him on the other.
He was astonished, and, by the time that she reached the entrance to the yard, so wass she, because it was not until then that she suddenly realized what she had done. She stopped dead, as though having walked straight into a metaphysical but palpable stone wall. She felt her blood rising to the roots of her hair, and realised that she did not dare look back at him. Undoubtedly he too would be rooted to the spot. She could almost feel his eyes travelling from her feet to her head, finally settling upon the back of her head in the expectation that she would turn around. He called out, as she knew he would, 'Kyria Pelagia.'
'What?' she demanded curtly, as though an effort to be short with him could cancel out the hideously simple way in which she had betrayed her affection without even thinking about it.
'What's for dinner?'
'Don't tease me.'
'Would I tease you?'
'Don't make anything of it. I thought you were my father. I always kiss him like that when he comes in.'
'Very understandable. We are both old and small.'
'If you are going to tease me, I shall never speak to you again.'
He came up behind her and around her, and threw himself upon his knees before her. 'O no,' he cried, 'anything but that.' He bowed his head to the ground and moaned piteously, 'Have mercy. Shoot me, flog me, but don't say you'll never speak to me.' He grasped her abou the knees and pretended to weep.
'The whole village is looking,' she protested, 'stop it at once. You are so embarrassing, get off me.'
'My heart is broken,' he wailed, and he grasped her hand and began to smatter it with kisses.
'Stupid goat, you are deranged.'
'I am tormented, I am burning, I am broken into pieces, my eyes spout forth with tears.' He leaned back and gestured poetically with his fingers to portray the extraordinary cascade of invisible tears that he intended her to envisage. 'Don't laugh at me,' he continued, having struck upon a new tack. 'O, light of my eyes, do not mock poor Antonio in his affliction.'
'Are you drunk again?'
'Drunk with sorrow, drunk with agony. Speak to me.'
'Did your battery win another football match?
”
”
Louis de Bernières (Corelli’s Mandolin)
“
They passed each other at the door, she going out, and he returning from work. Unselfconsciously she put one hand up to his left cheek and, in passing, kissed him on the other.
He was astonished, and, by the time that she reached the entrance to the yard, so was she, because it was not until then that she suddenly realized what she had done. She stopped dead, as though having walked straight into a metaphysical but palpable stone wall. She felt her blood rising to the roots of her hair, and realised that she did not dare look back at him. Undoubtedly he too would be rooted to the spot. She could almost feel his eyes travelling from her feet to her head, finally settling upon the back of her head in the expectation that she would turn around. He called out, as she knew he would, 'Kyria Pelagia.'
'What?' she demanded curtly, as though an effort to be short with him could cancel out the hideously simple way in which she had betrayed her affection without even thinking about it.
'What's for dinner?'
'Don't tease me.'
'Would I tease you?'
'Don't make anything of it. I thought you were my father. I always kiss him like that when he comes in.'
'Very understandable. We are both old and small.'
'If you are going to tease me, I shall never speak to you again.'
He came up behind her and around her, and threw himself upon his knees before her. 'O no,' he cried, 'anything but that.' He bowed his head to the ground and moaned piteously, 'Have mercy. Shoot me, flog me, but don't say you'll never speak to me.' He grasped her about the knees and pretended to weep.
'The whole village is looking,' she protested, 'stop it at once. You are so embarrassing, get off me.'
'My heart is broken,' he wailed, and he grasped her hand and began to smatter it with kisses.
'Stupid goat, you are deranged.'
'I am tormented, I am burning, I am broken into pieces, my eyes spout forth with tears.' He leaned back and gestured poetically with his fingers to portray the extraordinary cascade of invisible tears that he intended her to envisage. 'Don't laugh at me,' he continued, having struck upon a new tack. 'O, light of my eyes, do not mock poor Antonio in his affliction.'
'Are you drunk again?'
'Drunk with sorrow, drunk with agony. Speak to me.'
'Did your battery win another football match?
”
”
Louis de Bernières (Corelli’s Mandolin)
“
I cooked with so many of the greats: Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz. Rick Bayless taught me not one but two amazing mole sauces, the whole time bemoaning that he never seemed to know what to cook for his teenage daughter. Jose Andres made me a classic Spanish tortilla, shocking me with the sheer volume of viridian olive oil he put into that simple dish of potatoes, onions, and eggs. Graham Elliot Bowles and I made gourmet Jell-O shots together, and ate leftover cheddar risotto with Cheez-Its crumbled on top right out of the pan.
Lucky for me, Maria still includes me in special evenings like this, usually giving me the option of joining the guests at table, or helping in the kitchen. I always choose the kitchen, because passing up the opportunity to see these chefs in action is something only an idiot would do. Susan Spicer flew up from New Orleans shortly after the BP oil spill to do an extraordinary menu of all Gulf seafood for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner Maria hosted to help the families of Gulf fishermen. Local geniuses Gil Langlois and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard joined forces with Gale Gand for a seven-course dinner none of us will ever forget, due in no small part to Gil's hoisin oxtail with smoked Gouda mac 'n' cheese, Stephanie's roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and light-as-air chickpea fritters, and Gale's honey panna cotta with rhubarb compote and insane little chocolate cookies. Stephanie and I bonded over hair products, since we have the same thick brown curls with a tendency to frizz, and the general dumbness of boys, and ended up giggling over glasses of bourbon till nearly two in the morning. She is even more awesome, funny, sweet, and genuine in person than she was on her rock-star winning season on Bravo. Plus, her food is spectacular all day. I sort of wish she would go into food television and steal me from Patrick. Allen Sternweiler did a game menu with all local proteins he had hunted himself, including a pheasant breast over caramelized brussels sprouts and mushrooms that melted in your mouth (despite the occasional bit of buckshot). Michelle Bernstein came up from Miami and taught me her white gazpacho, which I have since made a gajillion times, as it is probably one of the world's perfect foods.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Off the Menu)
“
THE MAGIC OF LOVE
The magic of personal love works miracles as this true story testifies:
Even one person’s intimate love can deeply heal another. For example,Tom, a simple person without training in psychotherapy, worked as an orderly in a mental hospital. One of the sickest patients in the hospital, a deeply psychotic woman, had been there for eighteen years. She never spoke to anyone, or even looked in another’s eyes. She sat alone all day in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth. One day during his dinner break, Tom found another rocking chair, pulled it over, and rocked along beside her as he ate his dinner. He returned the next day, and the next. Tom worked only five days per week, but he asked for special permission to come in on his days off so he could rock with the psychotic woman. Tom did this every day for six months. Then one evening as he got up to leave, the woman said, “Good night.”
It was the first time she had spoken in eighteen years. After that, she began to get well. Tom still came to rock with her every day, and eventually she was healed of her psychosis.*
*Healing the Eight Stages of Life. M. Linn, S. Fabricant, D. Linn. Paulist Press. 1988.
”
”
Anthony M. Coniaris (God and You: Person to Person (Developing a Daily Personal Relationship with Jesus))
“
Dinner passed in silence, and the occasional groan as she ate.
It was that good.
As for the dessert, it proved even better than he claimed.
The low, rumbling hum rolled from her mouth as the chocolate and caramel hit her tongue. “Oh my god that’s good. So good. So incredibly delicious.” She groaned that last bit.
“Holy fuck, baby. Stop that, or I won’t be responsible for what I do.”
She opened her eyes to find his smoldering gaze on her. The tension in his body practically vibrated the space in between them.
Say something. Tell him to stop staring at you. To stop looking like he’ll devour you.
But I like it.
She wanted his ardent flirtation. But she also wanted control. How to achieve it? The solution seemed too simple.
Fight sensuality with… sensuality.
“Stop what?” she innocently said. Holding his stare, she brought a heaping forkful of nirvana to her mouth. She slid the top of the spoon between her lips, lapped it with the tip of her tongue.
A nerve twitched in his cheek.
The spoon pushed its way into her mouth. She sucked the sugary bite from it.
He swallowed.
Slowly, she withdrew the spoon and licked it clean.
He groaned. “That has got to be the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to me.
”
”
Eve Langlais (When a Beta Roars (A Lion's Pride, #2))
“
Her departure left no traces but were speedily repaired by the coming of spring. The sun growing warmer, and the close season putting an end to the Marquess's hunting, it was now Odo's chief pleasure to carry his books to the walled garden between the castle and the southern face of the cliff. This small enclosure, probably a survival of medieval horticulture, had along the upper ledge of its wall a grass walk commanding the flow of the stream, and an angle turret that turned one slit to the valley, the other to the garden lying below like a tranquil well of scent and brightness: its box trees clipped to the shape of peacocks and lions, its clove pinks and simples set in a border of thrift, and a pear tree basking on its sunny wall. These pleasant spaces, which Odo had to himself save when the canonesses walked there to recite their rosary, he peopled with the knights and ladies of the novelle, and the fantastic beings of Pulci's epic: there walked the Fay Morgana, Regulus the loyal knight, the giant Morgante, Trajan the just Emperor and the proud figure of King Conrad; so that, escaping thither from the after-dinner dullness of the tapestry parlour, the boy seemed to pass from the most oppressive solitude to a world of warmth and fellowship.
”
”
Edith Wharton (Edith Wharton: Collection of 115 Works with analysis and historical background (Annotated and Illustrated) (Annotated Classics))
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But if they didn’t return to Halstead Hall before their absence was discovered, she’d be ruined. A young unmarried female couldn’t just go off on a trip, no matter how short, with an unmarried gentleman. They’d have to marry.
Yes-they would, wouldn’t they?
A powerful longing swept him as he watched her hug Mrs. Duffet. For one fleeting moment, he indulged the fantasy of being Celia’s husband.
He would return to Cheapside every day after work at Bow Street to find her, his wife, waiting in his home to greet him with a kiss. They’d have a pleasant dinner, then walk down to Blackfriars Bridge and stroll across the Thames to watch the sun set in summer or the moon rise on a chilly night in winter.
Once they returned home, he’d write up his reports as she darned his socks-
A harsh laugh clogged his throat. As if a lady like her would ever darn socks. Or be satisfied with a simple walk across a bridge in the moonlight instead of a night at the theater.
You could afford a night at the theater from time to time, and new socks anytime your old ones get holes.
But only if he became Chief Magistrate. And once the children came along…
Children? That was quite the leap forward, considering that a marriage between them was impossible. Damn Mrs. Plumtree to hell.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #5))
“
Your first sign something may be amiss comes quickly, the moment you get off the plane at the airport in Baltimore. After months of deprivation, American excess is overwhelming. Crowds of self-important bustling businessmen. Shrill and impatient advertising that saturates your eyes and ears. Five choices of restaurant, with a hundred menu items each, only a half-minute walk away at all times. In the land you just left, dinners are uniformly brown and served on trays when served at all. I was disoriented by the choice, the lights, the infinite variety of gummy candy that filled an entire wall of the convenience store, a gluttonous buffet repeated every four gates. The simple pleasure of a cup of coffee after a good night’s sleep, sleep you haven’t had since you received your deployment orders, seems overly simple when reunited with such a vast volume of overindulgent options.
But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn’t fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It’s not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life.
I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.
”
”
Brian Castner (The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows)
“
Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. —Psalm 111:2 (NIV) The church I attend recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. It’s been a festive year, replete with special dinners, panel discussions, and a book on the church’s history. But what amazed me even more were all the little stories that formed the big story—those quiet, individual witnesses of faith who, taken together, made up this grand sweep of 150 years. One woman has been a member for nearly half the church’s life. Fifty-two Sundays times seven decades is how many church services? “You’ve heard thousands of sermons!” I said. “What do you remember about the best ones?” She smiled. “The best sermons are the ones I think about all week. Because then I know God is working in me.” That simple lesson of faith was the start of a new practice for me. When I hear a phrase or sentence in a sermon that especially strikes me, I’ll write it down on the bulletin or on whatever I have handy. (Once it was the palm of my hand!) Then I pin that phrase to the bulletin board behind my computer. This week’s was: May God give me the grace to understand that the world is too small for anything but Love. I see it every day, reminding me to ponder how I might live that message. Like my friend at church, I’ve been able to see in a new way how God is working in my life—all week long. Guide my life, God, by Your Words; that in hearing them, I may live according to Your wishes. —Jeff Japinga Digging Deeper: Pss 105, 111, 119:18; 1 Pt 2:2
”
”
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
“
But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. Even the very simple act that we call “seeing a person we know” is in part an intellectual one. We fill the physical appearance of the individual we see with all the notions we have about him, and of the total picture that we form for ourselves, these notions certainly occupy the greater part. In the end they swell his cheeks so perfectly, follow the line of his nose in an adherence so exact, they do so well at nuancing the sonority of his voice as though the latter were only a transparent envelope that each time we see this face and hear this voice, it is these notions that we encounter again, that we hear. No doubt, in the Swann they had formed for themselves, my family had failed out of ignorance to include a host of details from his life in the fashionable world that caused other people, when they were in his presence, to see refinements rule his face and stop at his aquiline nose as though at their natural frontier; but they had also been able to garner in this face disaffected of its prestige, vacant and spacious, in the depths of these depreciated eyes, the vague, sweet residue—half memory, half forgetfulness—of the idle hours spent together after our weekly dinners, around the card table or in the garden, during our life of good country neighborliness.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
In her eyes, he could see the fear, but also the love. The need. Time to show her, that to him, she meant everything.
“Before you shower me with kisses for saving you –”
“I think it could be argued that I played a part.”
“Not when I retell the story you won’t. But we can argue about that later, naked. As I was saying, I have something for you.” Remy pulled the sheet of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it.
Initially he’d worried about it being too short. But as Lucifer assured him when he made the contract and binding, the less clauses he put in, the more his promise would stick out. Handing it to her, he waited.
Fidgeted when she didn’t say a word. Almost tore it from her grasp. Then stumbled back as she threw herself at him.
I, Remy, the most awesome demon in Hell, do declare to love the witch Ysabel, fiery temper and all, for an eternity. I will never stray. Never betray her trust. Never do anything to cause her pain upon penalty of permanent death.
This I do swear in blood,
Remy
A simple contract, which in its very lack of clauses and sub items, awed her. “You love me that much?”
He peered at her with incredulity on his face. “Of course I love you that much. Would I have done all the things I did if I didn’t?”
“Well, you are related to a mad woman.”
“Yes, and maybe it’s madness for me to love you, but I do. Do you think just any woman would inspire me enough to take on a bloody painful curse. Or put up with the fact you have a giant, demon eating cat. I know you have trust issues, and that I might not have led the kind of life that inspires confidence, but I will show you that you can believe in me. I want you to love me.”
“I know you do. And I do love you. Only for you would I come to the rescue wearing nothing to cover my bottom.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You came to battle in a skirt without any underwear?”
A slow nod was her answer.
He grinned, then scowled. “You will not do that again. Do you know how many demons live in the sewer and could have looked up your skirt? I won’t have them looking at what’s mine. On second thought. Throw out all your underwear. I’ll lead the purge on the sewers myself so you can stroll around with your girl parts unencumbered for my enjoyment.”
“You’re insane,” she laughed.
“Crazy in love with you,” he agreed. “But I do warn you, we’ll have to have dinner with my crazy mother at least once a month.”
“Or more often. I quite like your mom. She’s got a refreshing way of viewing the world.”
“Oh fuck. Don’t tell me she’s already rubbing off,” he groaned, as he pulled her into his arms.
She snuggled against him. This was where she belonged. But she did have a question. “As my new… what should I call you anyway? Boyfriend? Demon I sleep with?”
“The following terms are acceptable to me. Yours. Mate. Husband. Divine taster of your –”
She slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’ll stick to mate.”
“And I’m going with my super, sexy, touch her and die, fabulous cougar, ass kicking witch.”
“I dare you shout that five times in a row without stumbling.”
He did to her eye popping disbelief. “I told you, I have a very agile tongue.”
“I remember.
”
”
Eve Langlais (A Demon and His Witch (Welcome to Hell, #1))
“
My poor darling, you must forgive me; I know I’ve distressed you, but it’s all over now; I won’t think of it any more.” But she saw that his eyes remained fixed upon the things that he did not know, and on that past era of their love, monotonous and soothing in his memory because it was vague, and now rent, as with a gaping wound, by that moment on the Island in the Bois, by moonlight, after his dinner with the Princesse des Laumes. But he was so imbued with the habit of finding life interesting—of marvelling at the strange discoveries that there are to be made in it—that even while he was suffering so acutely that he did not believe he could bear such agony much longer, he was saying to himself: “Life is really astonishing, and holds some fine surprises; it appears that vice is far more common than one has been led to believe. Here is a woman I trusted, who seems so simple, so straightforward, who, in any case, even allowing that her morals are not strict, seemed quite normal and healthy in her tastes and inclinations. On the basis of a most improbable accusation, I question her, and the little that she admits reveals far more than I could ever have suspected.” But he could not confine himself to these detached observations. He sought to form an exact estimate of the significance of what she had just told him, in order to decide whether she had done these things often and was likely to do them again. He repeated her words to himself: “I knew quite well what she was after.” “Two or three times.” “I’ve heard that tale before.” But they did not reappear in his memory unarmed; each of them still held its knife, with which it stabbed him anew.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
I use the following scenario in my classes to illustrate the nature of the moral circle. Imagine, I ask my students, that your best friend just got a job waiting tables at a restaurant. To celebrate with her you arrange with friends to go to the restaurant to eat dinner on her first night. You ask to be seated in her section and look forward to surprising her and, later, leaving her a big tip. Soon your friend arrives at your table, sweating and stressed out. She is having a terrible night. Things are going badly and she is behind getting food and drinks out. So, I ask my students, what do you do? Easily and naturally the students respond, “We’d say, ‘Don’t worry about us. Take care of everyone else first.’” I point out to the students that this response is no great moral struggle. It’s a simple and easy response. Like breathing. It is just natural to extend grace to a suffering friend. Why? Because she is inside our moral circle.
But imagine, I continue with the students, that you go out to eat tonight with some friends. And your server, whom you vaguely notice seems stressed out, performs poorly. You don’t get good service. What do you do in that situation? Well, since this stranger is not a part of our moral circle, we get frustrated and angry. The server is a tool and she is not performing properly. She is inconveniencing us. So, we complain to the manager and refuse to tip. In the end, we fail to treat another human being with mercy and dignity. Why? Because in a deep psychological sense, this server wasn’t really “human” to us. She was a part of the “backdrop” of our lives, part of the teeming anonymous masses toward which I feel indifference, fear, or frustration. The server is on the “outside” of my moral circle.
”
”
Richard Beck (Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality)
“
I look over the recipe again. It sounds very simple. You boil some rice in water like pasta, I can do that. You cook some onion in butter, stir in the rice, pop it in the oven. Add some cream and grated cheese and mix it up. And voila! A real dinner.
I pull out a couple of the pots Caroline gave me, and began to get everything laid out. Grant always yammered on about mise en place, that habit of getting all your stuff together before you start cooking so you can be organized. It seems to make sense, and appeals to the part of me that likes to make lists and check things off of them.
I manage to chop a pile of onions without cutting myself, but with a lot of tears. At one point I walk over to the huge freezer and stick my head in it for some relief, while Schatzi looks at me like I'm an idiot. Which isn't unusual. Or even come to think of it, wrong. But I get them sliced and chopped, albeit unevenly, and put them in the large pot with some butter. I get some water boiling in the other pot and put in some rice. I cook it for a few minutes, drain it, and add it to the onions, stirring them all together. Then I put the lid on the pot and put it in the oven, and set my phone with an alarm for thirty-five minutes. The kitchen smells amazing. Nothing quite like onions cooked in butter to make the heart happy. While it cooks, I grab a beer, and grate some Swiss cheese into a pile. When my phone buzzes, I pull the pot out of the oven and put it back on the stovetop, stirring in the cream and cheese, and sprinkling in some salt and pepper.
I grab a bowl and fill it with the richly scented mixture. I stand right there at the counter, and gingerly take a spoonful. It's amazing. Rich and creamy and oniony. The rice is nicely cooked, not mushy. And even though some of my badly cut onions make for some awkward eating moments, as the strings slide out of the spoon and attach themselves to my chin, the flavor is spectacular. Simple and comforting, and utterly delicious.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Recipe for Disaster)
“
If Jim was back at the imaginary dinner party, trying to explain what he did for a living, he'd have tried to keep it simple: clearing involved everything that took place between the moment someone started at trade — buying or selling a stock, for instance — and the moment that trade was settled — meaning the stock had officially and legally changed hands.
Most people who used online brokerages thought of that transaction as happening instantly; you wanted 10 shares of GME, you hit a button and bought 10 shares of GME, and suddenly 10 shares of GME were in your account. But that's not actually what happened. You hit the Buy button, and Robinhood might find you your shares immediately and put them into your account; but the actual trade took two days to complete, known, for that reason, in financial parlance as 'T+2 clearing.'
By this point in the dinner conversation, Jim would have fully expected the other diners' eyes to glaze over; but he would only be just beginning. Once the trade was initiated — once you hit that Buy button on your phone — it was Jim's job to handle everything that happened in that in-between world. First, he had to facilitate finding the opposite partner for the trade — which was where payment for order flow came in, as Robinhood bundled its trades and 'sold' them to a market maker like Citadel. And next, it was the clearing brokerage's job to make sure that transaction was safe and secure. In practice, the way this worked was by 10:00 a.m. each market day, Robinhood had to insure its trade, by making a cash deposit to a federally regulated clearinghouse — something called the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, or DTCC. That deposit was based on the volume, type, risk profile, and value of the equities being traded. The riskier the equities — the more likely something might go wrong between the buy and the sell — the higher that deposit might be.
Of course, most all of this took place via computers — in 2021, and especially at a place like Robinhood, it was an almost entirely automated system; when customers bought and sold stocks, Jim's computers gave him a recommendation of the sort of deposits he could expect to need to make based on the requirements set down by the SEC and the banking regulators — all simple and tidy, and at the push of a button.
”
”
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
“
But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. Even the very simple act that we call “seeing a person we know” is in part an intellectual one. We fill the physical appearance of the individual we see with all the notions we have about him, and of the total picture that we form for ourselves, these notions certainly occupy the greater part. In the end they swell his cheeks so perfectly, follow the line of his nose in an adherence so exact, they do so well at nuancing the sonority of his voice as though the latter were only a transparent envelope that each time we see this face and hear this voice, it is these notions that we encounter again, that we hear. No doubt, in the Swann they had formed for themselves, my family had failed out of ignorance to include a host of details from his life in the fashionable world that caused other people, when they were in his presence, to see refinements rule his face and stop at his aquiline nose as though at their natural frontier; but they had also been able to garner in this face disaffected of its prestige, vacant and spacious, in the depths of these depreciated eyes, the vague, sweet residue—half memory, half forgetfulness—of the idle hours spent together after our weekly dinners, around the card table or in the garden, during our life of good country neighborliness. The corporeal envelope of our friend had been so well stuffed with all this, as well as with a few memories relating to his parents, that this particular Swann had become a complete and living being, and I have the impression of leaving one person to go to another distinct from him, when, in my memory, I pass from the Swann I knew later with accuracy to that first Swann—to that first Swann in whom I rediscover the charming mistakes of my youth and who in fact resembles less the other Swann than he resembles the other people I knew at the time, as though one’s life were like a museum in which all the portraits from one period have a family look about them, a single tonality—to that first Swann abounding in leisure, fragrant with the smell of the tall chestnut tree, the baskets of raspberries, and a sprig of tarragon.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
Tom carried with him a glass full of wine, which clearly hadn’t been his first of the evening. He swaggered and swayed as he started to speak, and his eyes, while not quite at half mast, were certainly well on their way.
“In my mind,” Tom began, “this is what love is all about.”
Sounded good. A little slurred, but it was nice and simple.
“And…and…and in my mind,” Tom continued, “in my mind, I know this is all about…this is all love here.”
Oh dear. Oh no.
“And all I can say is that in my mind,” he went on, “it’s just so great to know that true love is possible right now in this time.”
Crickets. Tap-tap. Is this thing on?
“I’ve known this guy for a long, long time,” he resumed, pointing to Marlboro Man, who was sitting and listening respectfully. “And…in my mind, all I have to say is that’s a long…long time.”
Tom was dead serious. This was not a joke toast. This was not a ribbing toast. This was what was “in his mind.” He made that clear over and over.
“I just want to finish by saying…that in my mind, love is…love is…everything,” he continued.
People around the room began to snicker. At the large table where Marlboro Man and I sat with our friends, people began to crack up.
Everyone except Marlboro Man. Instead of snickering and laughing at his friend--whom he’d known since they were boys and who, he knew, had recently gone through a rough couple of years--Marlboro Man quietly motioned to everyone at our table with a tactful “Shhhh,” followed by a quietly whispered “Don’t laugh at him.”
Then Marlboro Man did what I should have known he’d do. He stood up, walked up to his friend, who was rapidly entering into embarrassing territory…and gave him a friendly handshake, patting him on the shoulder. And the dinner crowd, rather than bursting into the uproarious laughter that had been imminent moments before, clapped instead.
I watched the man I was about to marry, who’d always demonstrated a tenderness and compassion for people--whether in movies or in real life--who were subject to being teased or ridiculed. He’d never shown a spot of discomfort in front of my handicapped brother Mike, for all the times Mike had sat on his lap or begged him for rides to the mall. He’d never mocked or ridiculed another person as long as I’d known him. And while his good friend Tom wasn’t exactly developmentally disabled, he’d just gotten perilously close to being voted Class Clown by a room full of people at our rehearsal dinner. But Marlboro Man had swept in and ensured that didn’t happen. My heart swelled with emotion.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
But then the cowboy standing in front of you smiles gently and says, “You sure?”
Those two simple words opened up the Floodgates of Hell. I smiled and laughed, embarrassed, even as two big, thick tears rolled down both my cheeks. Then I laughed again and blew a nice, clear explosion of snot from my nose. Of all the things that had happened that day, that single moment might have been the worst.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I insisted as another pair of tears spilled out. I scrambled around the kitchen counter and found a paper towel, using it to dab the salty wetness on my face and the copious slime under my nose. “I am so, so sorry.” I inhaled deeply, my chest beginning to contract and convulse. This was an ugly cry. I was absolutely horrified.
“Hey…what’s wrong?” Marlboro Man asked. Bless his heart, he had to have been as uncomfortable as I was. He’d grown up on a cattle ranch, after all, with two brothers, no sisters, and a mother who was likely as lacking in histrionics as I wished I was at that moment. He led a quiet life out here on the ranch, isolated from the drama of city life. Judging from what he’d told me so far, he hadn’t invited many women over to his house for dinner. And now he had one blubbering uncontrollably in his kitchen. I’d better hurry up and enjoy this evening, I told myself. He won’t be inviting me to any more dinners after this. I blew my nose on the paper towel. I wanted to go hide in the bathroom.
Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he’d used on our first date when he’d kept me from biting the dust. “No, c’mon,” he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, “What’s wrong?”
What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother’s wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn’t anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he’s at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn’t want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you’re playing out in Marlboro Man’s kitchen right now?) and I’m finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago.
Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before.
“What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded.
Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise.
“You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.”
“I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.”
I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was.
I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy.
“Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.”
“I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said.
I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together.
“Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift.
Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
“No,” I said, my lip quivering.
“Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to.
“I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.”
We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney - for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the chief sources of his power. But let me turn the light of this observation on to real life, I thought. Does it help to explain some of those psychological puzzles that one notes in the margin of daily life? Does it explain my astonishment the other day when Z, most humane, most modest of men, taking up some book by Rebecca West and reading a passage in it, exclaimed, 'The arrant feminist! She says that men are snobs!' The exclamation, to me so surprising for why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex? - was not merely the cry of wounded vanity; it was a protest against some infringement of his power to believe in himself. Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. The glories of all our wars would be unknown. We should still be scratching the outlines of deer on the remains of mutton bones and bartering flints for sheep skins or whatever simple ornament took our unsophisticated taste. Supermen and Fingers of Destiny would never have existed. The Tsar and the Kaiser would never have worn crowns or lost them. Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism; how impossible it is for her to say to them this book is bad, this picture is feeble, or whatever it may be, without giving far more pain and musing far more anger than a man would do who gave the same criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness for life is diminished. How is he to go on giving judgement, civilizing natives, making laws, writing books, dressing up and speechifying at banquets, unless he can see himself at breakfast and at dinner at least twice the size he really is? So I reflected, crumbling my bread and stirring my coffee and now and again looking at the people in the street. The looking-glass vision is of supreme importance because it charges the vitality; it stimulates the nervous system. Take it away and man may die, like the drug fiend deprived of his cocaine. Under the spell of that illusion, I thought, looking out of the window, half the people on the pavement are striding to work. They put on their hats and coats in the morning under its agreeable rays. They start the day confident, braced, believing themselves desired at Miss Smith's tea party; they say to themselves as they go into the room, I am the superior of half the people here, and it is thus that they speak with that self-confidence, that self-assurance, which have had such profound consequences in public life and lead to such curious notes in the margin of the private mind.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own)
“
Not liking to think of him so, and wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became irritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and all the fine gravings came drawn with steel instruments about her lips and forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into quiet.
It didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book, fame—who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way with him, his truthfulness—for instance at dinner she had been thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she had felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I want—something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she waited a little, knitting, wondering, and slowly rose those words they had said at dinner, "the China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the honey bee," began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically, and as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one blue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving their perches up there to fly across and across, or to cry out and to be echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book.
And all the lives we ever lived
And all the lives to be,
Are full of trees and changing leaves,
she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so, she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white, or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.
Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners
she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and that, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one red and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her—her husband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did not want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but something seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the life, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humour, she knew, that made him slap his thighs. Don't interrupt me, he seemed to be saying, don't say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading. His lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when they passed his books over as if they didn't exist at all. But now, he felt, it didn't matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it—if not he, then another. This man's strength and sanity, his feeling for straight forward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in Mucklebackit's cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them fall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely (but not one or two reflections about morality and French novels and English novels and Scott's hands being tied but his view perhaps being as true as the other view), forgot his own bothers and failures completely in poor Steenie's drowning and Mucklebackit's sorrow (that was Scott at his best) and the astonishing delight and feeling of vigour that it gave him.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse)