Quotes about cake
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Mary McCarthy photo

“I am putting real plums into an imaginary cake.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Commenting on her novel The Group. New York Herald Tribune (5 January 1964)

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“You know they're all gay, right? … Male strippers. Fruity as cake. Queer as a cardinal.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Sarah, Act I, Scene 2
Past Curfew (2009)

Nas photo

“Yo, if this piano's the cake then my words are the candles
Light it up, make a wish, and them angels will grant you”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

Project Windows
On Albums, Nastradamus (1999)

Arundhati Roy photo
Margot Asquith photo

“She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

Quoted by her step-daughter Violet in The Listener, June 11, 1953.
Of Lady Desborough.

Andy Partridge photo
Newton Lee photo

“(Sylvia) You almost never see a real lady popping out of a cake.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 30

Carole Morin photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Halldór Laxness photo

“Three things, according to poets, are considered bliss in Iceland: hot rye-cakes, plump girls, and cold buttermilk.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

“(Sylvia) Rita, I want to have my cake and eat it too. (Rita) Sorry, Ma, it only works for Republicans.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 88

Tom Robbins photo
Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“The Protestant churches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament are flesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our souls as meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholics maintain that they are literally just that; although they possess all the sensible qualities of wafer-cakes and diluted wine. But we can have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief, either —
# That this, that, or the other, is wine; or,
# That wine possesses certain properties.
Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive reference to what affects the senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon. Now, it is not my object to pursue the theological question; and having used it as a logical example I drop it, without caring to anticipate the theologian's reply. I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself. It is absurd to say that thought has any meaning unrelated to its only function. It is foolish for Catholics and Protestants to fancy themselves in disagreement about the elements of the sacrament, if they agree in regard to all their sensible effects, here or hereafter.
It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The final sentence here is an expression of what became known as the Pragmatic maxim, first published in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (January 1878), p. 286

Enoch Powell photo

“It is conventional to refer to the United Nations in hushed tones of respect and awe, as if it were the repository of justice and equity, speaking almost with the voice of God if not yet acting with the power of God. It is no such thing. Despite the fair-seeming terminology of its charter and its declarations, the reality both of the Assembly and of the Security Council is a concourse of self-seeking nations, obeying their own prejudices and pursuing their own interests. They have not changed their individual natures by being aggregated with others in a system of bogus democracy…Does anybody seriously suppose that the members of the United Nations, or of the Security Council, have been actuated in their decisions on the Argentine invasion of the Falklands by a pure desire to see right done and wrong reversed? That was the last thing on their minds. Everyone of them, from the United States to Peru, calculated its own interests and consulted its own ambitions. What moral authority can attach a summation of self-interest and prejudice? I am not saying that nations ought not to pursue their own interests; they ought and, in any case, they will. What I am saying is that those interests are not sanctified by being tumbled into a mixer and shaken up altogether. An assembly of national spokesmen is not magically transmuted into a glorious company of saints and martyrs. Its only redeeming feature is its impotence…The United Nations is a colossal coating of humbug poured, like icing over a birthday cake, over the naked ambitions and hostilities of the nations.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

'We have the will, we don't need the humbug', The Times (12 June 1982), p. 12
1980s

Dylan Moran photo
Iain Duncan Smith photo

“When she gets into negotiations with her European counterparts about trade arrangements, could she remind them that cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked.”

Iain Duncan Smith (1954) British politician

Speech in Parliament https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/05/piece-cake-iain-duncan-smiths-peculiar-advice-theresa-may-brexit/ referring to the metaphor, widely-used in reference to the UK government's Brexit policy, that you can't have your cake and eat it (5 March 2018)
2018

Billy Corgan photo

“The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

"Out on a Limb." Details Magazine. October 1996.

Galén photo

“He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of the narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Arabian Society In The Middle Ages, by Edward William Lane, (1883) citing Nowwájee, En-, Shems-ed-deen Moḥammad (died 1454), Ḥalbet El-Kumeyt, at footnote 167.
Latter day attributions

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“You cannot eat your cake and have your cake; 48 and store 's no sore.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 43.

John Heywood photo

“Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Would you both eat your cake, and have your cake?
Part II, chapter 9.
Proverbs (1546)

Kate Bush photo
Jimmy Carr photo

“I think being successful in comedy is being funny and making jokes - anything beyond that is the icing on the cake.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Charlotte Cripps (January 31, 2007) "Stand up and be counted, comedians", The Independent.

Ben Croshaw photo

“Oh, and for the benefit of those people who think I haven't been English enough in my recent articles: Bum bollocks tosser cor blimey guvnor eccles cakes apples and pears god save the queen fish and chips I hate yanks etc.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

More from the Poetry Corner http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/essays/mcavity.htm
Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

Alice Roosevelt Longworth photo

“The little man on the wedding cake.”

Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980) American writer and prominent socialite

Describing Thomas E. Dewey, Harry S. Truman's Republican opponent, as quoted in The Washington Post (22 May 1951); also attributed to Walter Winchell.

Albert Einstein photo
Robert Herrick photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Jerzy Vetulani photo

“I would like to live in a society in which we could go to a cafe and smoke a joint, just as nowadays we eat cake, which may have negative influence on our health as well.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Borejza, Tomasz; Vetulani, Jerzy (3 December 2012): Gdybym miał plantację marihuany, interview. „Przekrój” (in Polish).

Peter Greenaway photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake; you must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand heap.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

January 25, 1858
Journals (1838-1859)

Kenneth Minogue photo
Gracie Allen photo
Ian Holloway photo

“In football you need to have everything in your cake mix to make the cake taste right. One little bit of ingredient that Tony uses in his cake gets talked about all the time is Rory’s throw. Call that cinnamon and he’s got a cinnamon flavoured cake. It’s not fair and it’s not right and it’s only a small part of what he does.”

Ian Holloway (1963) English association football player and manager

On Tony Pulis's style of management. Mirror Football, 10 December 2010
Holloway uses bizarre cake analogy for Pulis' Stoke style, Mirror Football, 2010-12-11, Jeremy, Butler, 2010-12-10 http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Stoke-v-Blackpool-Ian-Holloway-blasts-critics-of-Tony-Pulis-style-by-using-a-bizarre-cake-analogy-article648761.html,
Sourced quotes

Kunti photo
Katy Perry photo

“If you wanna dance, if you want it all,
You know that I'm the girl that you should call.But when you're with me,
I'll give you a taste.
Make it like your birthday everyday.
I know you like it sweet,
So you can have your cake,
Give you something good to celebrate.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Birthday, written by Katy Perry, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, and Henry Walter
Song lyrics, Prism (2013)

John Maynard Keynes photo

“The duty of "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.”

Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), Chapter II, Section III, p. 20

Ben Croshaw photo
Michael Savage photo
Julia Child photo
Cees Nooteboom photo
Rachel Maddow photo

“Maddow on Sarah Palin accepting Fed money after all: "You can see cake from her house, and you can eat it from there too."”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, March 2009 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29859430/23

Ze Frank photo
Matthieu Ricard photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Jane Austen photo

“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-15) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Harold Nicolson photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“Why have a cake if I can't eat it?”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Rewards of Passion (Sheer Poetry) (1981)

Alice A. Bailey photo
Marcus Orelias photo

“When I wake up, I gotta cake up and if you owe me a dollar I'm taking no pay cuts.”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

On My Way Up
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

Bill Engvall photo
Josh Hawley photo
Courtney Love photo
Michael Savage photo
S. I. Hayakawa photo
James Fenimore Cooper photo
Ben Croshaw photo

“The cake is vanilla; I asked for chocolate; The tears They will not stop. (Prince of Persia: Emo Warrior)”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

Donald J. Trump photo
Erik Naggum photo

“Constructing a social system that tends to those who agree with it is a piece of cake compared to constructing one that makes those who disagree with it want to obey its principles.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Erik Naggum on Atlas Shrugged http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2010/01/erik-naggum-on-atlas-shrugged.html

Rutger Bregman photo
Chelsea Handler photo
Hilaire Belloc photo

“The Barbarian hopes — and that is the very mark of him — that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilisation has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort but he will not be at pains to replace such goods nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Ch. XXXII : The Barbarians , p. 282 https://books.google.com/books?id=EyrQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA282
This and That and the Other (1912)
Context: The Barbarian hopes — and that is the very mark of him — that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilisation has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort but he will not be at pains to replace such goods nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is for ever marvelling that civilisation should have offended him with priests and soldiers.

Sterling Hayden photo

“The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.”

Sterling Hayden (1916–1986) American actor

Book I : Man at Bay, Ch. 5
Wanderer (1963)
Context: "I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it." What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine — and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need — really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in — and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all — in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? What follows is not a blueprint for the man entombed; not many people find themselves in a situation paying a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year (as if any man is worth that much). But the struggle is relative: it's a lot hard to walk away from an income like that than from a fraction thereof.

John Ray photo

“If wishes were butter-cakes, beggars might bite.
If wishes were thrushes, beggars would eat birds.
If wishes would bide, beggars would ride.”

John Ray (1627–1705) British botanist

Source: English Proverbs (1670), p. 174

Jomo Kenyatta photo

“We have to learn by experience, and this is the policy of my Government. In our Kanu manifiesto, we state clearly that we are not going to discriminate because of race, colour or religion. We are going to treat Kenyans on an equal footing and the law of Kenya is going to apply to Europeans, Asians and Africans, those who are citizens of this country. They are going to be treated alike. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We have started our policy and we are going to follow it.”

Jomo Kenyatta (1893–1978) First prime minister and first president of Kenya

As quoted in Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) Jul 23 - Nov 29, 1963. p. 1223.
Context: Unless we have a Government with capable officers to run it, then our Government will fall tomorrow. I want the people to understand this: that we have this policy of Africanization, as we have during the time we have taken over the Government; people are being trained for various posts, and when they are ready we shall give them responsibility, but we cannot take people just because they are black and say "All right, you run this, you run that." We have to learn by experience, and this is the policy of my Government. In our Kanu manifiesto, we state clearly that we are not going to discriminate because of race, colour or religion. We are going to treat Kenyans on an equal footing and the law of Kenya is going to apply to Europeans, Asians and Africans, those who are citizens of this country. They are going to be treated alike. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We have started our policy and we are going to follow it.

Reza Pahlavi photo

“We know the country, its potential, its resources, where it was and where it could have been. We should be at the level of a Taiwan or a South Korea today, not ranked 150th in the world, even though we are an oil-producing country… We should not have our Iranian rap artists say the regime is promising us yellow cake when we don't even have bread to eat.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted in Peter Godspeed, 'It is my duty' http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=462&page=2, Canada National Post, September 24, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

Noah Levine photo
Toni Morrison photo

“Paddy dashed back towards his goal like a woman who smells a cake burning. The ball won the race and it curled inside the near post as Paddy crashed into the outside of the net and lay against it like a fireman who had returned to find his station ablaze.”

Con Houlihan (1925–2012) Irish sportswriter

The Evening Press, 25 September 1978. As reprinted https://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/con-houlihan-paddy-dashed-back-to-his-goal-like-a-woman-who-smells-a-cake-burning--26885274.html in the Irish Independent following Houlihan's death.

Kurt Schuschnigg photo

“That Somerset Maugham anthology Cakes and Ale. How destructive he is, venomous, pulling everything down in biting, corrosive cynicism. Yet somewhere deep down under all the conceit, sarcasm and snobbery is real quivering pain, helpless bewilderment at the inexplicable fact that human nature is chequered.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

And what perplexes him is less the common, mean element in decent people than the goodness and kindness of wicked, vicious ones.
Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Simone de Beauvoir photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Antonio Fresco photo

“I got that white girl
No-scrimnate
Chocolate lemon red velvet
I eat all the cake
They outside hating
Cause they can't get in
The whole city's out
We maxed it to ten.”

Antonio Fresco (1983) American DJ, music producer, and radio personality

Written by Antonio Fresco, Jonn Hart, and Clayton William
Song lyrics, Blow It https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Clayton-William-Jonn-Hart-Antonio-Fresco/Blow-It 2015

Lila Downs photo

“I thought it was a very important to remind us that we have all been migrants and to give credit to the people who are putting the oranges in our orange juice and the strawberries in our cakes.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On her inclusion of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” in a musical set to reflect the migrant experience in “Mex factor” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/feb/10/artsfeatures.popandrock in The Guardian (2003 Feb 10)
Music and culture

Shelley Winters photo

“I've been away from Hollywood so long, I feel like a spider on a wedding cake.”

Shelley Winters (1920–2006) actress

On the set of Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960), as quoted in "Rambling Reporter" by Mike Connolly, Hollywood Reporter (December 10, 1958), p. 2