It's like getting an extraordinary meal after you've been eating junk food for a long time. The taste just sweeps through your sensibilities, bringing all-out contentment, and the sheer goodness of it makes up for every bad meal you ever had.

— Joan Bauer

It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year's Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine carelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids on their windows by January second to rub it in. (Th wonk)

— Joan Bauer

It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine's Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vice grip of unrequited love. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year's Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine carelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in.

— Joan Bauer

Life and death played out before my very eyes. You don't see these things if you clean your room regularly.

— Joan Bauer

Mom has the Touch. She knows what flowers go with what occasions, what hors d'oeuvres work with what people. She believes passionately in the power of food to heal, restore, and stimulate relationships, and she has built a following of loyal customers who really hope she's right. If she's wrong, says Sonia, no one wants to know.

— Joan Bauer

Mom put dense cheddar bread into a bag for a man who said this was his wife's favorite - he'd driven all the way from New Jersey to buy it because today was their anniversary. Several women in the store jabbed their husbands on hearing this. I hung my head - Peter Terri's wouldn't cross the street to buy me a Twinkle.

— Joan Bauer

My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.

— Joan Bauer

Now I see that it isn't the problems along the way that make us or break us. It's how we learn to stand and face them that makes the difference.

— Joan Bauer

On cheap tippers:"Don't take it personally; they were deprived somehow as children. On low-fat entrées: "They sell well enough, but nobody's too happy after the meal.

— Joan Bauer

People are so cheap. Everyone wants quality, no one wants to pay for it. Here's the suburban dream-- to hire great workers who are such meek morons that they don't have the guts to ask for a living wage.

— Joan Bauer