Meal Quotes

“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“All worries are less with wine.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness.”
― Meg Wolitzer, The Uncoupling

“Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it.

“But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6)”
― Jay Rayner, Eating Crow: A Novel of Apology

“You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door because I'll be
working pretty late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven o'clock.”
― S.J. Perelman

“Merry hearts are vulnerable to death, don't be over-joyed to the state of oblivion, lest the enemy poison your meal.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“A hearty meal is easier to digest than one that is too small.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“Nearly everyone wants as least one outstanding meal a day.”
― Duncan Hines

“Her description of a perfect day sounds perfectly ordinary: “I will sleep long, have a relaxed breakfast. Then I’ll go out for some fresh air, chat with my husband or with friends. I might go to the theater, to the opera, or listen to a concert. If I’m rested, I might read a good book. And I would cook dinner. I like cooking!” These are the dreams of a person who had not been truly free for the last sixteen years. Though no longer young, Merkel is spry enough to enjoy the simplest of pleasures: country rambles, leisurely meals with (nonpolitical) friends, and music and books instead of charts, polls, and position papers. These pleasures will not replace the satisfaction of outsmarting a foe with her legendary stamina and command of facts. But, never one to ruminate over feelings, she will observe her own reaction to this new life with a scientist’s curiosity. In the short term, she is likely to spend time near her childhood home in the province of Brandenburg, where she first learned to love nature and which she still regards as her Heimat, or spiritual home. She’ll travel, too. Among her stated dreams is to fly over the Andes Mountains—an idealized destination; a metaphor for freedom.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Terence's idea of roughing it consisted of pork pie, veal pie, cold roast beef, a ham, pickles, pickled eggs, pickled beets, cheese, bread and butter, ginger beer and a bottle of port. It was possibly the best meal I had ever had in my life.”
― Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

“He ordered oxtail soup and enjoyed it heartily. Then he glanced at the menu for the fish, ordered a haddock and, seized with a sudden pang of hunger at the sight of so many people relishing their food, he ate some roast beef and drank two pints of ale, stimulated by the flavor of a cow-shed which this fine, pale beer exhaled.

His hunger persisted. He lingered over a piece of blue Stilton cheese, made quick work of a rhubarb tart, and to vary his drinking, quenched his thirst with porter, that dark beer which smells of Spanish licorice but which does not have its sugary taste.

He breathed deeply. Not for years had he eaten and drunk so much. This change of habit, this choice of unexpected and solid food had awakened his stomach from its long sleep. He leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette and prepared to sip his coffee into which gin had been poured.”
― J.K. Huysmans, A rebours: Exploration de l'esthétisme et de la marginalité dans la France décadente du XIXe siècle

“The main difference between sharing a story and sharing a meal is that a good story can sustain you for years.”
― Carolyn Watson Dubisch, The People That Melt in the Rain

“One time seven geese were walking towards me in a V, with the biggest Killer Duck marching point. They saw me as weak and moved to attack formation. But my Karate Hands were too knife-like to be an easy TV dinner.”
― Jarod Kintz, BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm presents: Two Ducks Brawling Is A Pre-Pillow Fight

“You give a whole lot of respect to food when you know what hunger is capable of.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Food is not everything, they say, but it means the world to a starving person.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Not all expensive meals are delicious, and not all delicious meals are expensive.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Some people eat to quench hunger, and some eat just to satisfy their gluttony.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“... jealousy wasn't a spice to me then. It was the whole meal and I was gagging it down.”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“The place where you eat is as important as the meal itself! Everything you add to something beautiful makes it even more beautiful! Add a nice place to a nice meal, add music, add candles, add poems, the flavour of that meal will constantly increase!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Fire and cooking were necessary precursors to our use of food as social lubricant, as facilitator of culture and connection.”
― Heather E. Heying, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life

“Cola and pizza was my first daytime meal after a week of extreme night shifts, followed by explosive diarrhea!”
― Steven Magee

“I was noticing during living in Hawaii that I would become chronically fatigued and sleepy after eating. It was strange, as it did not happen at every meal. I would eat at the same restaurants and sometimes I would be sickly after eating and other times I would feel fine. I knew I had past food intolerance to gluten, fructose and lactose and was avoiding them. But even with this avoidance, some meals would make me sickly! It was a mystery I could not understand, no matter how much I tried. The only clue I had was it seemed to occur only when I ate large meals. I could eat small meals fine anywhere, but large meals were an occasional issue.”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“An unplanned tomorrow is like a potluck dinner not a gourmet meal.”
― Jeffrey G. Duarte

“Wine is brought in coloured carafes. They glow aquamarine and sapphire, citrine and ruby, amethyst and topaz. Another course comes, with sugared violets and frozen dew.

Then come domes of glass, under which little silvery fish sit in a cloud of pale blue smoke.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“While the poor devours food, the rich toys with it.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“I always drink a quart of water with every meal.”
― Steven Magee, Pandemic Supplements

“Water goes hand in hand with food, just like children and crying.”
― John Joclebs Bassey, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“5. Thou must set the scene with tunes.
Road trips aren't the only time a decent playlist is required.
How we consume music has changed radically over the years.
Dinner at my grandparents' house was set to silence, at my parents' the radio, and at my friends' something much more personal: a playlist put together for the occasion with songs that are meaningful to us.
Supper is on hold until the right music starts to play, even if it means holding a knife and fork and slavering over the smell of dinner until the person in charge of the tunes has done their job.”
― Gabriella Bennett, The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way

“Makanlah selagi kamu lapar”
― GPR

“It is rarely the food that truly makes a meal, but the people we share it with. A family spaghetti recipe passed down from your grandma. The smell of dumplings clinging to a sweater you haven't washed in years. A cardboard pizza across a yellow table. A friend, lost in a memory, but alive in the taste of a half-burnt brownie.
Love in a lemon pie.”
― Ashley Poston, The Seven Year Slip