“Get out of your head. If you don't you'll always be disappointed. Pay attention.” — Stephanie Danler Attention Copy Share Image
“I had created a life that was bent in service to all my personal cravings.” — Stephanie Danler Cravings Copy Share Image
“But the song was as intimate as a faucet dripping in the night.” — Stephanie Danler Intimate Copy Share Image
“God, how I loved him. Not him exactly, let me try again: I loved his ghost.” — Stephanie Danler Ghost Copy Share Image
“How impossible it is to forget the stories we tell ourselves, even when the truth should supersede them.” — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“Or maybe it means we’ve forgotten ourselves. And we keep forgetting ourselves. And that’s the big grown-up secret to survival.” — Stephanie Danler Forgetting Copy Share Image
“How am I going to live here? I wondered. Something is going to have to change, them or me.” — Stephanie Danler Change Copy Share Image
“Does anyone come to New York clean? I'm afraid not. But crossing the Hudson I thought of crossing Lethe, milky river of… — Stephanie Danler Food Copy Share Image
“I mean that we can allow ourselves to live and not really know what it is that we’re doing. That’s all right.… — Stephanie Danler Accumulation Copy Share Image
“My palms were damp. That was the moment I realized I wanted the job. That job, at that restaurant specifically.” — Stephanie Danler Time Copy Share Image
“mess of Italy, France, and some burgeoning American cuisine that nobody really believed in yet? A hodgepodge that shouldn’t have worked? When… — Stephanie Danler Coming home Copy Share Image
“TERROIR. I looked it up in The World Atlas of Wine in the manager’s office. The definition was people talking around it… — Stephanie Danler Food Copy Share Image
“The jargon, the tenets, the manifestos - it wasn’t just to make the guest feel better about spending their money. It was… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“Jake put on a new record and propped the cover up - Charlie Parker’s sax ran into the room. Someone had told… — Stephanie Danler Music Copy Share Image
“You will see it coming. Not you actually because you don’t see for yourself yet, everyone is busy seeing for you, days… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“You will develop a palate. A palate is a spot on your tongue where you remember. Where you assign words to the… — Stephanie Danler Discipline Copy Share Image
“SALT: your mouth waters itself. Flakes from Brittany, liquescent on contact. Blocks of pink salt from the Himalayas, matte gray clumps from… — Stephanie Danler Food Copy Share Image
“We always just miss New York. I watched it with this neighborhood. When I moved here everyone was mourning SoHo of the… — Stephanie Danler East village Copy Share Image
“The lilacs shed as I walked the bridge. My phone buzzed twice and I turned it off. The city was radiant and… — Stephanie Danler Freedom Copy Share Image
“I had a ritual—and having any ritual sounded so mature that I told everyone about it, even the regulars. On my days… — Stephanie Danler Books Copy Share Image
“You will encounter a fifth taste. Umami: uni, or sea urchin, anchovies, Parmesan, dry-aged beef with a casing of mold. It’s glutamate.… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“Remember this, I told myself. Remember how quiet today is. I had the newspaper, which I would keep for years, and I… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“It’s not hard to like these foods once you open your mouth to them: the anchovies, the trotters, the pig’s head terrines,… — Stephanie Danler Food Copy Share Image
“No names. I didn’t know people. I grabbed whatever characteristics I could: crooked or fluorescent teeth, tattoos, accents, lipsticks, I even recognized… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“Whole Foods, the Barnes & Noble, the Best Buy—they got stacked right on top of it. In Rome, they dig for a… — Stephanie Danler Whole foods Copy Share Image
“You can’t cultivate them. The farmers used to take female pigs out into the countryside, lead them to the oaks, and pray.… — Stephanie Danler Animal Copy Share Image
“Two homeless men were asleep on picnic tables. I had become very good at not looking at unpleasant things. I could skip… — Stephanie Danler Homeless Copy Share Image
“Two-dollar beers that tasted like barely fermented, yeasty water. We salivated. There was no coursing - in ten minutes plates started pounding… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“You will stumble on secrets. Hidden all over the restaurant: Mexican oregano, looking cauterized, as heady as pot. Large tins of Chef’s… — Stephanie Danler Olive oil Copy Share Image
“I came here in a car like everybody else. In a car filled with shit I thought meant something and shortly thereafter… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“The sky was so blue. It’s only been five years. My skyline was never marked with an absence. Remember that wine school?… — Stephanie Danler Death Copy Share Image
“It's always the simple things, well executed, that are memorable.” — Stephanie Danler Memorable Copy Share Image
“When you’re older you will know that at some unconscious level not only did you see it coming, but you created it,… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“Wow,” I said. And I meant it. I had never thought of a tomato as a fruit - the ones I had… — Stephanie Danler Copy Share Image
“I'm sick of that, I said. Young, young, young, that's what I get, all day, everyday. But I know your secret…You're all… — Stephanie Danler Bitterness Copy Share Image
“I don’t know what it is exactly, being a server. It’s a job, certainly, but not exclusively. There’s a transparency to it,… — Stephanie Danler Career Copy Share Image
