Priya Iyer

“A philosophy professor at my college, whose baby became enamored of the portrait of David Hume on a Penguin paperback, had the cover laminated in plastic so her daughter could cut her teeth on the great thinker.”
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

“I think you must ask yourself what will make you happy. Not anyone else. You.’ I stared at her. ‘I suppose you think that sounds selfish, but it’s how I’ve lived my own life. Each morning I wake up and the first thing I think is what can I do today to make myself happy. You’d be surprised how hardly anyone else does that.’ ‘Actually I wouldn’t.’ ‘Most people think only about what they have to do. They don’t stop to ask if they really want to. Me, I dance the tango to be happy, I make love to be happy, look at art, listen to music, wear beautiful clothes, enjoy all my passions as often as I can. I make happiness the thing that matters most.”
― Anonymous

“The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“Every time he returned from a trip to Lebanon, I wanted to sit him down and discuss, in detail, every bite of food he’d eaten. He was happy to oblige, but nothing he described, even the elaborate meals with family and more family, made his eyes go wide like the man’oushe. It’s street corner bakery food, he said. you get it wrapped in paperand off you go. They’d stopped on a whim because they were hungry and needed a snack, and it turned out to be the best Lebanese food he’d ever put in his mouth. The flatbread was chewy, but with a crisp exterior. It was blistered (okay, my word, not his) and warm, topped with za’atarorcheese, filled with tomatoes and pink pickled turnips and mint and folded over on itself. I had to stop him. I couldn’t take it. Breads like this were not unfamiliar to me; I’d had them before. But those were breads that came in plastic bags. No matter how fresh they say the bread is, it’s still bread that you get in a plastic bag. Warmfrom-the-oven man’oushe is something breaddreams are made of, something you are only going to get from your own kitchen.”
― Anonymous