Pineapple popsicles

"All day long I can look forward to a popsicle.

"The persistent anxiety that fills the rest of my life is calmed for as long as I have the flavor of something good in my mouth.

"And though it's true that when the flavor is finished the anxiety returns, we do not have so many reliable sources of pleasure in this life as to turn our nose up at one that is so readily available, especially here in America.

"A pineapple popsicle. Even the great anxiety of writing can be stilled for the eight minutes it takes to eat a pineapple popsicle."

Zadie Smith in "Joy" from The New York Review of Books