The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

Most vegetarians I ever saw looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.

Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.

‘Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

A great step toward independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.

What is food to one is to others bitter poison.

Cooking is the most massive rush. It’s like having the most amazing hard-on, with Viagra sprinkled on top of it, and it’s still there twelve hours later.