“Writing anything is a treason of sorts.”

Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever.

This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.

Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbone, and Pernod.

Don’t touch my dick, don’t touch my knife.

I’ve long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk.

I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas – fat, drugged, and completely out of it.

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you.

You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.

The way you make an omelet reveals your character.

Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.

Frightened people become angry people – as history teaches us again and again.

Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me .

People confuse me. Food doesn’t.

Luck is not a business model.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Human ‘beans’ is the only animals that is killing their own kind.

Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe.

Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe.

Violence begets violence, you know. And you can’t kill off all the violent people or all the murderers. We’d have to kill off the government.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

It’s true drinkin will kill ya, but if you’re drunk you don’t care.

I find that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead.