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Hospitality Quotes

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Hospitality Quotes

“Isabel had always enjoyed a house full of people. 'Feed your friends, and their mouths will be too full to gossip,' Bubbie used to say. 'Feed your enemies, and they'll become your friends.' Throughout Isabel's childhood, the Johansen household had been full of people coming over, sitting down for a glass of wine or a slice of pie, staying up late, talking and laughing. Bubbie and Grandfather had been determined that she should never feel like an orphan. Except that, despite their efforts, sometimes she had. It wasn't their fault, she reflected as she placed wedges of quiche on plates. There was just something inside her- an urge, a yearning- that made her long to be someone's daughter, not the granddaughter. She never said so, though, not aloud. Yet somehow, they heard her. Somehow, they knew. Perhaps, in the aftermath of Bubbie's final illness and passing, that was why Isabel had become so bound to Bella Vista. Now she couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Her heart resided here, her soul. She still loved having people over, creating beautiful food, watching the passing of the seasons. Even now, with all the trouble afoot and secrets being revealed like the layers of a peeled onion, she found the rhythm of the kitchen soothing.”

“Setting out some honey shortbread cookies to go with the lemonade, she flashed on memories of her grandmother, offering refreshments to anyone who was lucky enough to come through the kitchen door. As a working farm, Bella Vista was always busy with workers, some seasonal and others permanent. 'In my kitchen, everyone is family,' Bubbie used to say, beaming as the orchard workers, mechanics or gardeners gladly wolfed down her baked goods.”

“To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”

“The behaviour of the English people I had run into was making it very difficult to nail down a theory that the reason my trip so far had been such a bizarre success, was that Irish people were crazy. One Englishman had spent a morning on the telephone trying to organise a helicopter to take me out to an island, when a boat was leaving only a few yards away, and here was another, making a two-hour round trip for no reason other than to lend a helping hand. Two of the more eccentric pieces of behaviour hadn't been performed by the Irish, but by my fellow countrymen. However, both Andy and Tony had embraced wholeheartedly a love of the Irish way of living life.”

“Hospitality is a prized virtue of monastic communities. Benedict's rule says: 'All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me."' Brother Alphonsus served as a doorkeeper in the seventeenth century at a Jesuit college in Majorca, Spain. Each time someone knocked at the door he would reply, 'I am coming, Lord!' This practice reminded him to treat each person with as much respect as if it were Jesus himself at the door.”

“At least you've brought gifts. What's in the basket?" She rummaged through the contents. "A few sweetmeats and lozenges. Packets of raisins. But mostly it's Aunt Thea's surplus cosmetics and remedies. She sends away for every product advertised in every ladies' magazine. I like to see them put to some use." He blinked at her. "These are your gifts?" "Your men have depleted our stores of food, and I didn't have time to prepare anything else." "What are they supposed to do with-" he held up a brown bottle and peered at the label- "Dr. Jacobs' Miracle Elixir?" He plucked a small jar out next. "Excelsior Blemish Cream?" "Women are women, Logan. Every girl needs a bit of luxury and a chance to feel pretty now and then.”

“All these years! All this time with us -- have you learned nothing?! You only live by the grace of our clan's tenet of forgiveness! Your judgement is shit! Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature. Without decency, neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai.”

“Open the windows and the doors, she shouted, cook some meat and fish, buy the largest turtles around, let strangers come in and spread their mats in the corners and urinate in the rose bushes and sit down to eat as many times as they want, and belch and rant and muddy everything with their boots, and let them do whatever they want to us, because that's the only way to drive off ruin.”

“And what is your name?" Caroline asked him. He smiled up at her, a little impishly. "I guess Bianca's name for me will work. Call me Bear." "Bear?" Caroline repeated, doubtfully. "I think it would be best right now," he said simply. "For all of us." "You aren't running from anything?" she asked directly. "No, I guess you could say something is running from me. The law would be on my side, ma'am, if I could get them involved. For now, I'm doing all I can.”

“When I am a good host, I can order the world precisely as I believe it ought to be. It is a world that I have created in my mind and in my own image, and it gladdens me profoundly to see it unfold without original sin, without expulsions and floods and disobedience and illness. When I am a good guest, I have returned to Eden, where everything I need is provided for me, including companionship and a benevolent deity at my shoulder serving me and protecting me. The concept of paradise may be backward-looking but the concept of heaven is anticipatory. Perhaps this is what heaven will be like? A great table of oak worn smooth with age and candle wax; a dimly lit room, a quartet of angels playing Sarah Vaughan in the corner; this blissful throb of quiet, intelligent conversation; bubbling pots and aromatic stews that no one seems to have worked to prepare; and you - you have nothing to worry about, not now, not here, not for all eternity. Leave it all behind at the threshold, forget everything, for here in heaven, you are my guest.”

“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting. In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea. I liked the Irish way better.”