“There are two things you should never do with your father: learn how to drive and learn how to kill a chicken.”

“But it was from him - with his cool, long sideburns and aviator sunglasses, and box of watercolor paints (and artist's paycheck) - from him we learned how to create beauty where none exists, how to be generous beyond our means, how to change a small corner of the world just by making a little dinner for a few friends.”

“How can it be, after all this concentrated effort and separation, how can it be that I still resemble, so very closely, my own detestable mother?”

“This is the crepe. This is the cider. This is how we live and eat.”

“...as soon as I saw the three-bin stainless steel pot sink, exactly like ours, I felt instantly at home and fell into peeling potatoes and scraping plates for the dishwasher like it was my own skin. And that, just like that, is how a whole life can start.”

“Be careful what you get good at doin', cuz you'll be doin' it for the rest of your life.”

“I am often slow in catching up to the times, but even so, I still cannot even grip this idea: With nothing more than pitocin in your IV drip, you can sooner control the date and time of the birth of a human being-- the gushing entry into the great blue world of a whole new person-- than you can the scheduling of a few line cooks in your operation.”