Archive

Quotes

‘Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860

One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.

—Julia Child, 2001

Is it only the mouth and belly which are injured by hunger and thirst? Men’s minds are also injured by them.

—Mencius, 300 BC

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

—Luis Buñuel, 1983

Whatsoever was the father of a disease, an ill diet was the mother.

—George Herbert, 1651

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1943

Cooking is the most massive rush. It’s like having the most amazing hard-on, with Viagra sprinkled on top of it, and it’s still there twelve hours later.

—Gordon Ramsey, 2003

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

—Sydney Smith, 1855

For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

—Herman Melville, 1851

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

—Virginia Woolf, 1929

’Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1595

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.

—Lord Byron, 1812

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

—Socrates, c. 430 BC