“I’ve been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do A Cook’s Tour, I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn’t already.”

“There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.”

“I'd learned something... Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me... and others. This was valuable information.”

“I'm of a generation that romanticizes and maybe even over-romanticized things that were painful, that hurt others. I feel that. But I don't know if I have any regrets.”

“'Kitchen Confidential' wasn't a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”

“I am never merry when I hear sweet music.”

“I hope to see London once ere I die.”

“Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.”

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.”

“English history is aristocracy with the doors open. Who has courage and faculty, let him come in.”

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.”

“Would the cook were o' my mind!”

“God mark thee to His grace! Thou was the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed. And might I live to see thee married once, I have my wish.”

“I wish you all the joy that you can wish.”