“We were discussing a grisly double murder and Rodriguez was telling us all this in the same sort of conversational tone a person might use to pass on a favorite lasagna recipe. And I was responding with the same enthusiasm a new cook might show. I was simultaneously horrified and impressed with myself.”

“I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”

“Give two cooks the same ingredients and the same recipe; it is fascinating to observe how, like handwriting, their results differ. After you cook a dish repeatedly, you begin to understand it. Then you can reinvent it a bit and make it yours. A written recipe can be useful, but sometimes the notes scribbled in the margin are the key to a superlative rendition. Each new version may inspire improvisation based on fresh understanding. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as all that, but such exciting minor epiphanies keep cooking lively.”

“We have an hour before we have to leave," Cray said. "So I thought I might tell you a little about myself. I thought it might pass the time.""I'm not really all that interested," Alex said.”

“I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, as it were, i these lapses of time from one room to another, but all in the same house.”

“There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.”