Dieting or Fasting

A Lenten Moment

What a poor, benighted age we live in! How we deny ourselves all sauces but the best. How little of what surrounds us is ever offered either by use or abstinence. And there is the secret. Fasting is an offering, too. The dieter says: "Sweets are bad; I cannot have them ever." The faster says: "Sweets are good; I will not take them now." The dieter is condemned to bitter bondage, to a life which dares not let food in. But the faster is a person preparing for a feast. Lent leads to an Easter, and to mirth and weight of glory.

- Robert Farrar Capon