Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862Quotes
A great step toward independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60Most vegetarians I ever saw looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.
—Finley Peter Dunne, 1900One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.
—Julia Child, 2001We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BCWhat is food to one is to others bitter poison.
—Lucretius, 50 BC‘Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.
—Voltaire, 1770At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
—Virginia Woolf, 1929A woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.
—Lord Byron, 1812He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.
—Molière, 1666