“By July we had strawberries, red currants, raspberries, veal, dill, baby turnips, marrow. Mussolini resigned, and Italy capitulated. Roses could be had.”

“Nim unwrapped a loaf of fresh dilled rye bread and opened a crock of trout mousse. He slathered up a big slice and handed it to me. [...] We had thinly sliced veal smothered in kumquat sauce, fresh spinach with pine nuts, and fat red beefsteak tomatoes (impossibly rare at this time of year) broiled and stuffed with lemon apple sauce. The wide, fan-shaped mushrooms were sauteed lightly and served as a side dish. The main course was followed by a salad of red and green baby lettuce with dandelion greens and toasted hazelnuts.”

“Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time.”

“But we had to stop ’cause Larry can’t throw for shit, and people in other punts were complaining about being hit by strawberries. Even though they was Marks and Spencer’s strawberries.”

“Certainty is not to be had. But as we learn this we become not more moral but more resigned. We become nihilists.”

“It looked like pieces of bread pudding that had been soaked in raspberry syrup.”