“She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.”

“A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.”

“Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.”

“A person's authentic character is revealed the moment he gets angry.”

“If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen… A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”

“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”

“A Platonic friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person.”

“The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?”

“The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.”

“Recipes are just descriptions of one person’s take on one moment in time. They’re not rules.”