Quotes About Tradition

The one thing my mother did make was what was known at the time as lox and onions and eggs. Now, no one makes it with lox; they make it with nova. That was my mother's specialty, which she cooked on New Year's Day for the Rose Bowl games, which we had a party for every year. It took her about an hour to make scrambled eggs.

Some of the kimonos took as long as four to five months to make, with all the layers that go into it.

We took our Catholicism very seriously. We never missed Mass; our father was a lector, and both our parents taught catechism. At 3 in the afternoon on Good Friday, we gathered in the living room for 10 minutes of silence in front of a painting of the Crucifixion.

Anything new is always considered the devil's tool.

And so I put down some of the things that he said, about keeping your tools sharpened and not letting them lie on the ground where they get hurt or get abused and dirty and can't find them. And some thoughts about how his father used to do things.

Before I was married, I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do 'do-it-yourself.' When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers.

My gram taught me to knit when I was little, and then I came across my old knitting tools when I was cleaning out my closets after 'JJ' season one and got right back into it.

My family is notorious for its sweet tooth.

I absolutely believed when I was young because the Tooth Fairy was always good to me. The Tooth Fairy generally left me a dollar or two dollars and, as a kid, that was a lot of money.

It is the old battle, between those who use a toothbrush and those who don't.

My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.

I always preferred my father's pasta the next day, when he'd put it in a hot oven with heaps of extra cheese. It would emerge slightly burned and very crisp on top.

Whenever my family brought up the topic of my marriage, I'd joke that I would marry only a princess.

In PhD, my topic was Stage Techniques in Sanskrit Drama - theory and practice. I wanted to combine my drama training with Sanskrit drama, which has a very rich history in literature.

Starting at age 6, I was helping install the Formica table tops with that strong glue. My dad was the master. I was the apprentice. I'd be in there working until I'd be telling him, 'I feel woozy,' and he'd say, 'Go outside, son.' So I'd go organize his tools. He used the best ones made.

Judaism is my life. Everything I do is through the lens of Torah.

People expect someone with the name 'Israel Horovitz' to be a little old man with sideburns carrying a Torah.

I fought tooth and nail: I didn't want to learn Hebrew. My Bar Mitzvah came around, and I didn't want to read the Torah portion. I look back with a lot of chagrin about how I behaved.

I had to get to the point where I just had to embrace carrying the torch for the traditional girls out there. I love representing the traditional black woman.

B.B. King wanted people to carry the torch. He wanted people to keep that music alive, and he would talk about it.

My grandmother was the greatest cook in the world. She could just go in there, the whole kitchen would look like a tornado hit it and then she'd come out with the best food. Then she'd sit at the table and she wouldn't eat!

I kind of always made it a tradition, whenever Dream Theater played Toronto, to play a Rush cover.

Toronto is like a city of grandmas.

I mean, we sit around and we go, you know, 'Torture doesn't work.' Well, it's been around for 5,000 years. Most stuff that doesn't work goes the way of the dodo pretty quick, like waterbeds and 8-tracks and things like that.