318 Quotes About Hospitality

Conversation is an exchange of gifts. Native American tribal wisdom teaches that when you encounter a person on your life path, you must seek to find out what gifts you have for one another so that you may exchange them before going your separate ways. This seems true even of daily encounters with those we know well. We come into one another's presence bearing whatever harvest of experience the day has offered, and we foster relationship by making a gift of what we have received.

It's the oldest trick in the book. Half of the families in this godforsaken county are known for serving deplorable meals and dampening the bedsheets. It's the only way to dissuade houseguests.

This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.

When we love our hate, we stop hating. Love always wins. To love hatred means to welcome it. It doesn’t mean that we should do what it tells us to do, but we shouldn’t suppress it either. When we love hatred we put ourselves out of the process of hatred, and love begins.

Eating, and hospitality in general, is a communion, and any meal worth attending by yourself is improved by the multiples of those with whom it is shared.

There is great value in being able to say "yes" when people ask if there is anything they can do. By letting people pick herbs or slice bread instead of bringing a salad, you make your kitchen a universe in which you can give completely and ask for help. The more environments with that atmospheric makeup we can find or create, the better.

What is ordinary to you may be a desert of woeful newness to another.

I love like I’m thirsty. Can I offer you a tall glass of Sahara sand?


His abhorrence and fear of alcohol did not extend to his power as host. He kept a huge cupboard of drinks in the station house and loved to serve large measures to visiting relatives--especially those he disliked--about which there was a definite element of spreading bait for garden snails.