“In normal life, ‘simplicity’ is synonymous with ‘easy to do,’ but when a chef uses the word, it means ‘takes a lifetime to learn.’”

The family is the essential presence, the thing that never leaves you, even if you find you have to leave it.

You don’t learn knife skills at cooking school, because they give you only six onions and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are only six, and you’re not going to learn as much as when you cut up a hundred.

Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millennia. Now it is evanescent, like a season.

The crowd is not us. It never is.

The most important knowledge is understanding what you can’t do.

May was wild asparagus, arugula, and artichokes. June was wild lettuce and stinging nettles. July was cherries and wild strawberries. August was forest berries. September was porcini.

The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.

Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.

The Brazilian national identity is not one of João Gilberto Noll primary concerns. This does not mean social critique is absent: race, gender, and class relations are considered in Quiet Creature.

No one wants to live forever if it means becoming increasingly decrepit.

She’s the coolest person in the world…I don’t date what the person does…

No matter how much money, fame, and fortune you have, it doesn’t mean sh** if it’s not connected with love.

The process of rehearsal means you learn so much and really get the chance to develop your work on a character.

Going to a restaurant is one of my keenest pleasures. Meeting someplace with old and new friends, ordering wine, eating food, surrounded by strangers