Quotes about tea

A collection of quotes on the topic of coffee, cooking, food, tea.

Best quotes about tea

Lewis Carroll photo

“It's always tea-time.”

Variant: Yes, that's it! Said the Hatter with a sigh, it's always tea time.
Source: Alice in Wonderland

Henry Fielding photo

“Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea.”

Act IV, sc. xi
Love in Several Masques (1728)

Lewis Carroll photo

“up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky…”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Arthur Wing Pinero photo
Virginia Woolf photo

“Distorted realities have always been my cup of tea.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: Selected Diaries

John Lennon photo

“It makes rock concerts look like tea parties.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Commenting on American Football, in interview with Howard Cosell on ABC Television (December 1974)

Agatha Christie photo

“Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
Steve Martin photo

“Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: L.A. Story and Roxanne: Screenplays

Kakuzo Okakura photo

“Tea… is a religion of the art of life.”

Source: The Book of Tea

Alice Walker photo

“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.”

Source: The Color Purple

Quotes about tea

Winston S. Churchill photo
George Orwell photo

“Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Smothered Under Journalism: 1946

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Another quote often attributed to her without an original source in her writings, as in The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), p. 199. But once again archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.
A very similar remark was attributed to Nancy Reagan, in The Observer (29 March 1981): "A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is."
Variants:
A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag; you can't tell how strong she is and how much to trust her until you put her in hot water.
Disputed

Gary Snyder photo
Dylan Thomas photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Alexander Pope photo

“Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea.”

Canto III, line 7.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

Laozi photo

“I am not at all interested in immortality, only in the taste of tea.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

From Lu Tong (also spelled as Lu Tung)
Misattributed

Charlie Parker photo

“Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink, I can't even finger well, let alone play decent ideas. … You can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer

As quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It (1955) edited by by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, p. 379

Henry James photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

As quoted in Of This and Other Worlds (1982) by Walter Hooper, Preface, p. 9

William Ewart Gladstone photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Chögyam Trungpa photo
Lewis Carroll photo
James Joyce photo
Sting photo

“I don't drink coffee I take tea my dear
I like my toast done on one side…"

()”

Sting (1951) English musician

Source: Nothing Like the Sun

Abraham Lincoln photo

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Attributed in Evan Esar (1949), The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
Misattributed

Lewis Carroll photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore

Henry James photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Carl Barron photo
Uri Geller photo

“My boss treated me like a slave and I felt completely degraded. Then, just once, I did a terrible thing - I peed in his tea! Watching him drink it, my grudges completely dissolved - I never minded making tea for him again.”

Uri Geller (1946) Israeli illusionist

"Uri Geller recalls his pre-spoon-bending days; Interview by Rae Lewis," The Evening Standard (London), November 2, 1998

Mark Twain photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormons tried to convert me, but when I found they forbade tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to C. P. Sanger, 23 December, 1929
1920s

Henny Youngman photo

“Business was so bad the other night the orchestra was playing "Tea for One."”

Henny Youngman (1906–1998) American comedian

Don't Put My Name on this Book (1976), p. 92 http://archive.org/stream/dontputmynameont00youn#page/92/mode/2up/search/%22tea+for+one%22

Barack Obama photo

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia,
2012

Lewis Carroll photo

“Oh, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Canto 4, "Hys Nouryture"
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Frank Zappa photo
Thomas De Quincey photo
Stefan Zweig photo

“You're going to tell me that poverty's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not true, though. If you can't hide it, then it is something to be ashamed of. There's nothing you can do, you're ashamed just the same, the way you're ashamed when you leave a spot on somebody's table. No matter if it's deserved or not, honorable or not, poverty stinks. Yes, stinks, stinks like a ground-floor room off an airshaft, or clothes that need changing. You smell it yourself, as though you were made of sewage. It can't be wiped away. It doesn't help to put on a new hat, any more than rinsing your mouth helps when you're belching your guts out. It's around you and on you and everyone who brushes up against you or looks at you knows it. I know the way women look down on you when you're down at heels. I know it's embarrassing for other people, but the hell with that, it's a lot more embarrassing when it's you. You can't get out of it, you can't get past it, the best thing to do is get plastered, and here" (he reached for his glass and drained it in a deliberately uncouth gulp) "here's the great social problem, here's why the 'lower classes' indulge in alcohol so much more - that problem that countesses and matrons in women's groups rack their brains over at tea. For those few minutes, those few hours, you forget you're an affront to other and to yourself. It's no great distinction to be seen in the company of someone dressed lie this, I know, but it's no fun for me either.”

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Barack Obama photo

“L.B.J. operated in an environment in which if he got a couple of committee chairmen to agree he had a deal. Those chairmen didn’t have to worry about a Tea Party challenge. About cable news. That model has progressively shifted for each president. It’s not a fear-versus-a-nice-guy approach that is the choice. The question is: How do you shape public opinion and frame an issue so that it’s hard for the opposition to say no. And these days you don’t do that by saying, ‘I’m going to withhold an earmark,’ or ‘I’m not going to appoint your brother-in-law to the federal bench.’”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012
Context: The gist of Obama’s advice to any would-be president is something like this: You may think that the presidency is essentially a public-relations job. Relations with the public are indeed important, maybe now more than ever, as public opinion is the only tool he has for pressuring an intractable opposition to agree on anything. He admits that he has been guilty, at times, of misreading the public. He badly underestimated, for instance, how little it would cost Republicans politically to oppose ideas they had once advocated, merely because Obama supported them. He thought the other side would pay a bigger price for inflicting damage on the country for the sake of defeating a president. But the idea that he might somehow frighten Congress into doing what he wanted was, to him, clearly absurd. “All of these forces have created an environment in which the incentives for politicians to cooperate don’t function the way they used to,” he said. “L. B. J. operated in an environment in which if he got a couple of committee chairmen to agree he had a deal. Those chairmen didn’t have to worry about a Tea Party challenge. About cable news. That model has progressively shifted for each president. It’s not a fear-versus-a-nice-guy approach that is the choice. The question is: How do you shape public opinion and frame an issue so that it’s hard for the opposition to say no. And these days you don’t do that by saying, ‘I’m going to withhold an earmark,’ or ‘I’m not going to appoint your brother-in-law to the federal bench.’”

Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Marlene Dietrich photo
Henry Miller photo
Lorrie Moore photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“Unfortunately, we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing.”

Hodge and Clary, pg. 75
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)
Context: "Is there anything I could get for you?" he asked. "Something to drink? Some tea?"
"I don't want tea," said Clary, with a muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them."
"Unfortunately," said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing."

Rick Riordan photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Rick Riordan photo
Libba Bray photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Letters and Social Aims

Kakuzo Okakura photo

“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Variant: Blustery cold days should be spend propped up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate and a pile of comic books.
Source: The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book

Cassandra Clare photo

“The way you wear your hat,
The way you sip your tea,
The mem'ry of all that –
No, no! They can't take that away from me!”

Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) American lyricist

"They Can't Take That Away from Me", Shall We Dance.

Russell T. Davies photo
George Harrison photo

“Show me that I m everywhere and get me home for tea.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles
Arnold Bennett photo

“The proper, wise balancing
of one's whole life may depend upon the
feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.”

Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) English novelist

Source: How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

Holly Black photo

“The row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Tithe

Jane Austen photo

“But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea.”

Source: Mansfield Park

Georges Perec photo

“Question your tea spoons.”

Georges Perec (1936–1982) French writer

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

Mary Elizabeth Braddon photo
Beatrix Potter photo
Christopher Isherwood photo
Matt Fraction photo
Jonathan Stroud photo
Arundhati Roy photo
Rachel Caine photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

The Miracle of Mindfulness (1999)
Context: Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.

“I don't want tea, I want justice!”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Khaled Hosseini photo

“The Chinese say it is better to be deprived of food for three days than tea for one.”

Laila, p. 250
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Naomi Novik photo
Gerald Durrell photo
Jordan Sonnenblick photo

“That cup of tea is definately not down your alley”

Jean Ferris (1939–2015) American children's writer

Source: Once Upon a Marigold

Cassandra Clare photo
Jack Kerouac photo

“The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”

Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: "Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."

Lin Yutang photo
Libba Bray photo
Rudyard Kipling photo

“We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week…
The bottom is out of the Universe.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Source: The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling

Douglas Adams photo
Louise Penny photo
D.T. Suzuki photo
Bret Easton Ellis photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2

Thomas Hardy photo
Nancy Mitford photo