When you grow up in a family of languages you develop a kind of casual fluency so that languages though differently colored all seem transparent to experience.

I had decided I wanted to write about food and I knew the only way to do that is to speak with authority which meant learning the language and knowing what that experience is like.

And then I went to 'Dawson's Creek ' which is a show that was for better or for worse all about the language. It was a word-perfect show which I'd never had any experience with. And it was really shocking for me. I felt really hemmed in. At the time it wasn't my favorite working experience.

I've had a fair amount of experience with snakes and I find them to be pretty honest in terms of how you read their body language and emotions. They'll tell you when they're grumpy. They'll tell you when they're okay.

Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet respectful tones but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.

My wife wanted my children to have some Chinese culture and education. She believes the children need to learn two languages and two cultures.

Scientific research and other studies have demonstrated that arts education can enhance American students' math and language skills and improve test scores which in turn increase chances of higher education and good jobs in the future.

Dreams say what they mean but they don't say it in daytime language.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.