Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

"...maybe it means we've forgotten ourselves. And we keep forgetting ourselves. And that's the big grown-up secret to survival."

"You're only beginning to learn what you don't know. First you must relearn your senses. Your senses are never inaccurate -- it's your ideas that can be false."

"Most of the girls I knew didn't get asked out on dates. People got together through alcohol and a process of elimination. If they had anything in common beyond that they would go out and have a conversation."

"Just what is it that people got accomplished on their days off? She seemed like a writer -- but she never spoke of specific projects. And she never spoke of writing, of sitting down with pen to paper.  ...'Hmm. A writer. I try to engage in the task of setting something true on paper. But if you take art too seriously you wind up killing yourself.'"

"You don't care about consequences? Then it's too late. That he's complicated, not in a sexy way, but in a damaged way. I could tell you damage isn't sexy, it's scary. You're still young enough to think every experience will improve you and in some long-term way, but it isn't true. How do you suppose damage gets passed on?"

"I liked having answers. And of course he understood. Maybe that was what unsettled me, the way he spoke in decrees, but I was always aware that he was  a man. There were no shared sympathies between us. He didn't ever seem to have a question, and I don't mean curiosity, but a throbbing, existential, why-is-it-like-this question. He had already mastered the answer to that Why?"

"Aging is peculiar. I don't think you should be lied to about it. You have a moment of relevancy, when everything is speaking directly to you, expressing you exactly. You move toward the edge of the circle and then you're abruptly outside the circle. now what do you do with that? Do you stay, peering backward? Or do you walk away?"

"How much I had taken for granted...That was the full circle, wasn't it? Learn how to identify the flowers and the fruits so I could talk about the wine. Learn how to smell the wine so I could talk about the flowers. Had I learned anything besides endless reference points? What did I know about the thing itself? Isn't this what you dreamed of, Tess, when you got in your car and drove? Didn't you run away to find a world worth falling in love with, saying you wouldn't care if it loved you back?"

"The lilacs smelled like brevity. They knew how to arrive, and how to exit."

"You love the truth as it applies to everyone else."

"That was the morning I committed the first sin of love, which was to confuse beauty and a good sound track with knowledge."

"I loved his ghost. How impossible it is to forget the stories we tell ourselves, even when the truth should supersede them. That was why he adored me for a minute. Because I saw a beautiful, tormented hero. Rescue and redemption. I never saw him. All promise."

"But I see the marks on people. Strangers who sit at the bar alone and order a drink with intimacy."

Eating by Jason Epstein

Let's be honest: I didn't love this book. It's a memoir, which I do love. Jason Epstein was the editorial director at Random House for 40 years. He was responsible for the publication of authors like Nabokov, Doctorow, Mailer, Philip Roth and Gore Vidal. Fantastic. Except here he barely talks about any of that. Jason Epstein loves to cook, loves to eat, and loves the memories associated with certain foods. Awesome. Except here half the book is storytelling, the other half is recipes. The basic premise of the book is that Epstein believes in cooking as storytelling. So the recipes are told as if spoken to a friend, with no exact measurements. For someone who doesn't cook often or experiment much beyond what has worked before, this is not stimulating. I found myself throughout the book thinking of people in my life who would love this book.

There were a few bright spots. The early chapters that correspond with Epstein's childhood and young adult years in the Mid-Atlantic do evoke a sense of whimsy. I also wrote a few worthy quotes in my journal, which I'll share below. I don't discount this book, I only discount it for an untalented and uninspired (un)chef like myself.

"Without books you would not know who you are or where you came from or where you might be going."

"Perhaps my New York neighborhood with its multitudinous temptations is at fault. But I chose to live here. There is no escaping one's self."