“I decided that it wasnt pretty that I felt, but confident.”

“Tommy and I put on a radio play to entertain everyone while they unpacked their cookies. It was about a girl who saves up money for a prom dress, but at the last minute she says, "It's only clothes...”

“That's what I like so much about old libraries - they smell the way we'd like to imagine the past.”

“That's the most terrible thing about being a child; you're convinced that it's all your fault." Lulu”

“A great meal is an experience that nourishes more than your body.”

“Don't you just love the idea of cooking flowers? I imagine them bursting into bloom, right in the pan.”

“They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!”

“Halfway home, the sky goes from dark gray to almost black and a loud thunder snap accompanies the first few raindrops that fall. Heavy, warm, big drops, they drench me in seconds, like an overturne...”

“For the rest of my life, Zanzibar will be the Swahili word for rain. The rain would drizzle, spit, mist, downpour, shower, torrent, gust, deluge and blast. At one point it hit the ground so hard it...”