“It was never reasonable or fair that women should shoulder the burden of household management, but it is possible that in an effort to move toward gender parity, some of the art and science of household management and gracious living have been lost.”

“When public policy is directed toward urban spaces, it is directed toward people who sit at the margins.”

“We have to examine the extent to which we export poverty to other societies. When we decide that we will import products from China that are produced by people earning less than a dollar an hour, and grant their country most-favored-nation status (political contributions notwithstanding), we are deciding to make American workers who must earn the minimum wage compete with them. I am not suggesting that we close the doors to China or to Mexico, but I am suggesting that we look very carefully at the web of international relationships that we are creating. At the very minimum, we should understand that we have two choices in our country: we can raise world living standards by exporting those standards, or we can lower living standards- not only the world’s but also our own- by deciding that it is acceptable for the products of exploited labor to enter this country.”

“References to everybody just disturb me, and it also disturbs me that the people who make policy are not the same people who live policy. When we talk about everybody, we are leaving a whole lot of bodies out.”

“Philip. I have never been outside of England. I've never even been to London. Do you know what I would give for your experiences? How could you possibly think you would bore me?" He didn't answer, but there was such a look of delight in his eyes that I had to ask, "Why are you looking at me like that?" "You called me Philip. For the first time.”

“To my unsuspecting love.When I look into your eyes, I lose all sense of time and place. Reason robbed, clear thought erased, I am lost in the paradise I find within your gaze.I long to touch your blushing cheek, to whisper in your ear how I adore you, how I have lost my heart to you, how I cannot bear the thought of living without you.To be so near to you without touching you is agony. Your blindness to my feelings is a daily torment, and I feel driven to the edge of madness by my love for you.Where is your compassion when I need it most? Open your eyes , Love, and see what is right before you: that I am not merely a friend, but a man deeply, desperately , in love with you.Longing for you.”

“she wanted the man who held his infant daughter in his arms with fatherly affection, the man who could talk to her for hours and hours on a blanket in the grass,laid out under the trees.that man for some reason was out of reach.”