"Creating a meal for my friends and family, sitting together, eating, laughing and talking - that is when I am so happy. Oh my God, if you could see how much food I make - I am the original Jewish mother."

"I wouldn't say I'm a mummy's girl, but I have grown to have a tremendous appreciation of her as a woman. I was very much a daddy's girl."

"I feel my dad, I still feel his love, and I still love him. I would do anything to have him back, but half the reason that my life is good, has real, true value, is that he died. I would obviously rather have him alive, but he gave me so much in his death."

"In Britain, they have a lot of laws to protect you, and we enforce them very strongly so that our children can stay private figures, and the British press leave us alone, which is great. It means we can go on the Tube into the centre of London because it's quicker and more fun for the kids. We can do normal things."

"I really like cooking according to the season. I like to get creative with what's fresh."

"I love getting cookbooks - people will give them to me, and I read them like novels and file everything away."

"When I venture out to eat, I like to go to places with food that I don't know how to make. So my favorites are Japanese and Indian. Indian food has so much layering of flavor, and the dishes go together so harmoniously."

"After I had the kids, I took a break from work, and all my creativity went into my kitchen. I like experimenting."

"I don't eat four-legged animals, but I eat birds, I eat cheese, I eat dessert. I eat everything."

"I'm sort of getting into the idea of nourishing your inner aspect and doing that by investing in your family and making a meal and creating time together."

"During the strict macrobiotic chapter of my life, I ate miso soup every day for breakfast and sometimes with dinner as well."

"Invest in what's real. Clean as you go. Drink while you cook. Make it fun. It doesn't have to be complicated. It will be what it will be."

"When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat."

"I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors."

"It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared - as it always should be."

"I am well-nigh resolv'd to write no more tales but merely to dream when I have a mind to, not stopping to do anything so vulgar as to set down the dream for a boarish Publick."

"The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere 'assonance' rather than that of actual rhyme."

"In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs."

"The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life."

"That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish."

"Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder, I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy."

"The 'punch' of a truly weird tale is simply some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law - an imaginative escape from palling reality - hence, phenomena rather than persons are the logical 'heroes.'"

"The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe."

"The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic - nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae."

"No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce."

"To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form - and local human passions and conditions and standards - are depicted as native to other worlds and universes."

"The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning, since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader."

"The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines."

"Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement."

"Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood."

"Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings."

"Heaven knows where I'll end up - but it's a safe bet that I'll never be at the top of anything! Nor do I particularly care to be."

"Horrors, I believe, should be original - the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence."

"I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess."

"In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist."

"Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point."

"If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians."

"But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?"

"All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large."

"Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity."

"There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street."

"To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth."

"What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world's beauty, is everything!"

"Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent."

"Certain of Poe's tales possess an almost absolute perfection of artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province of the short story."

"I have concluded that Literature is no proper pursuit for a gentleman and that Writing ought never to be consider'd but as an elegant Accomplishment to be indulg'd in with infrequency and Discrimination."

"Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy."

"My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me."

"I do not think that any realism is beautiful."

"One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential."