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“At times he was very unhappy, but for a long time we thought that he would be cured of this unhappiness when he decided to become an adult; his unhappiness seemed like that of a boy—the absent-minded, voluptuous melancholy of a boy who has not yet got his feet on the ground and who lives in the sterile, solitary world of his dreams.”
― Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues

“Our dreams are never realized and as soon as we see them betrayed we realize that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality. No sooner do we see them betrayed than we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by.”
― Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues

“Everything happens for a reason? I don't see it that way at all. To me, only the first part is clear: Everything happens. Then other things happen, and other things, still. Out of each of these moments, we make something. Any number of somethings, in fact.

What comes of our own actions becomes the "reason." It is no predestined thing. We may arrive where we are by way of a specific path—we can take just one at a time—but it's never the only one that could have led us to our destination. Nor does a single event, even a string of them, point decisively to a single landing spot. There are infinite possible versions of our lives. Meaning is not what happens, but what we do with what happens when it does.”
― Jessica Fechtor, Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home

“Food has powers. It picks us up from our lonely corners and sits us back down, together. It pulls us out of ourselves, to the kitchen, to the table, to the diner down the block. At the same time, it draws us inward. Food is the keeper of our memories, connecting us with our pasts and with our people.”
― Jessica Fechtor, Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home