Quotes about fat

A collection of quotes on the topic of fat, likeness, look, doing.

Quotes about fat

José Baroja photo
Hermann Göring photo

“Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

Radio broadcast (1936), as quoted in The New Language of Politics: An Anecdotal Dictionary of Catchwords, Slogans, and Political Usage (1968) by William L. Safire, p. 178
Variants:
Guns will make us strong, butter will only make us fat.
We have no butter... but I ask you, would you rather have butter or guns? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.

Joanne K. Rowling photo
Sitting Bull photo

“Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Also told to Charles Larpenteur at Fort Union in 1867. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 73.

Frédéric Chopin photo

“You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in his letter to Jan Bialoblocki, written in Zelazowa Wola and dated back to December 24th 1826[citation needed]

Muhammad Ali photo

“Archie's been living off the fat of the land.
I'm here to give him his pension plan.
When you come to the fight don't block the door.
'Cause you'll all go home after round four.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Before his fight with Archie Moore (1962), as quoted in "Muhammad Ali was also great for civil rights" by Mark Wiedmer, in Times Free Press (17 January 2012) http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jan/17/muhammad-ali-also-great-for-civil-rights/?print

Saki photo

“You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Reginald on the Academy"
Reginald (1904)

Erik Satie photo

“I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Quoted by Rollo H. Myers (1968). Erik Satie, p.135. New York: Dover.
See also Socrate for the context of this quote.
General quotes

William Shakespeare photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“She was convinced that she was anorexic, because every time she looked in the mirror she did indeed see a fat person.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Nikki Sixx photo

“What's worse? Being strung out or being fat?”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

Ronald Reagan photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Anthony Bourdain photo

“To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.”

Kitchen Confidential (2000)
Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Context: Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine. (p. 70).

Alice Sebold photo
Wilbur Smith photo
Robinson Jeffers photo
William C. Roberts photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Will Ferrell photo

“I'm actually pretty athletic. I have to work out just to look fat.”

Will Ferrell (1967) American actor, writer, and comedian

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6461604
Jared Jordan
Attributed

Karl Marx photo
Black Elk photo

“All around the circle, feeding on the green, green grass were fat and happy horses…”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Fiona Apple photo
Gabriel Iglesias photo

“A lot has changed, El Paso, a lot has changed. One thing's for sure, I'm still the fluffy guy. And I say "fluffy" because that is the politically correct term, for those of you who don't remember I used to say that there were Five Levels of Fatness. Reason why I say "Used to say" is because now there are six! Uh-huh, I met the new one in Las Cruces. The original five levels are Big, Healthy, Husky, Fluffy, and DAMN! People ask, "What could be bigger than DAMN!" The new level's called "OH HELL NO!" What's the difference? You're still willing to work with level five. Example, if you're on an elevator and you're with your friend and this really big guy gets on and you and your friend look at each other and you're like, "DAAAMN!" But you still let the big guy ride your elevator. That's the difference. Level six, you see walking towards your elevator, [Deep growling noise] [Pretends to be a shocked passenger and starts pushing the "close door" button. ] "OH HELL NO!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Pretends to kick the fat man out] That's the difference. The guy that I met was six foot eight, six hundred and fourteen pounds. Uh-huh, OH HELL NO!! And he was offended at my show. Not by anything that I said, but because of the fact that now at the shows I started selling T-shirts and apparently, I didn't have his size. Keep in mind, I go all the way up to 5X on the T-shirts and he was like, [Deep growling voice] "You don't have my size." I was like, "Dude, I didn't know they MADE you! I have up to 5X, I don't have [Growl] X!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

A picture of a dinosaur on the back of the tag, you know?
I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy (2009)

Lewis Carroll photo

“He is immensely fat, and so
Well suits the occupation:
In point of fact, if you must know,
We used to call him years ago,
THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION!”

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

Canto 5
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Daniel Handler photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Robert Browning photo
Vātsyāyana photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Kenzaburō Ōe photo
Willie Nelson photo

“I had gotten up to two, maybe three, packs (of cigarettes) a day. And my lungs were bothering me and I'd had pneumonia two or three times. And I was also smoking pot, and I decided, well, one of them's got to go. And so I took a pack of Chesterfields and took all the Chesterfields out, rolled up 20 big fat ones and put it in there, and I haven't smoked a cigarette since then”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Willie Nelson: Road Rules And Deep Thoughts, NPR Staff, NPR.org, National Public Radio, November 18, 2012, November 18, 2012 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=165223056,

Albertus Magnus photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“It was wonderful, a stunning happy ending to what began as just another tragic rock & roll story, as if Bob Dylan had been arrested in Miami for jacking off in a seedy little XXX theater while stroking the spine of a fat young boy.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

2000s, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)

Karl Marx photo
Eminem photo
José Saramago photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.”

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

"The Expanding Mental Universe", Saturday Evening Post (July 1959)
1950s

“Chubstitute (a name for a fat substitute)”

Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright

tick, tick... BOOM! (1990)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Ovid photo

“O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:
What else is this, but to devour our guests,
And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by destroying life, our life sustain;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.”

Heu quantum scelus est in viscera viscera condi ingestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus alteriusque animans animantis vivere leto! Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas, optima matrum, terra parit, nil te nisi tristia mandere saevo vulnera dente iuvat ritusque referre Cyclopum, nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis et male morati poteris ieiunia ventris!

Book XV, 88–95 (from Wikisource)
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

André Weil photo
Boyd K. Packer photo
Jerome David Salinger photo

“There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again — all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and — I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

Virginia Woolf photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Rudolf Nureyev photo

“I would be ready to take over tomorrow. But first of all, all fat and lazy members of the troupe would have to be thrown out.”

Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993) Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer

Source: "Rudolf Nurejew" in Der Spiegel https://www.spiegel.de/politik/rudolf-nurejew-a-30ce3698-0002-0001-0000-000014322047?context=issue (19 October 1980)

Libba Bray photo

“Does my new feminism make me look fat?”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Augusten Burroughs photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“I’d rather be short, fat, and ugly than take after that man. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni photo
Elbert Hubbard photo

“A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Stephen Fry photo

“I'm fat because I'm greedy, and if my mind is fat it's because I'm curious.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
Naomi Novik photo

“Anger, intelligence, and wit are ultimately more seductive than zero percent body fat.”

Maria Raha (1972) American journalist

Source: Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground

Philip K. Dick photo
Diana Gabaldon photo
Eoin Colfer photo
Augusten Burroughs photo

“A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
Cassandra Clare photo
Cheryl Strayed photo
Andrew Solomon photo

“I chose fat and functional over slender and miserable.”

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Janet Evanovich photo
Jennifer Weiner photo
Dennis Miller photo
Bashō Matsuo photo

“Why so scrawny, cat?
Starving for fat fish or mice…
Or backyard love?”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: Japanese Haiku

Jim Morrison photo
Woody Allen photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Michael Crichton photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Gordon Korman photo
Margaret Wise Brown photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Jennifer Weiner photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“Enormous? Did you just call me FAT? I am not fat. - Jace”

City of Ashes
Variant: Enormous? Did you just call me fat?

Sarah Dessen photo
Bill Maher photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in our health, or we suffer in our soul, or we get fat.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed in Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark (1971), p. 737. The only source given in the end notes is "personal information". Einstein is said to have made this comment when a box of candy was being passed around after dinner, and he said that his doctor wouldn't let him eat it. The book also says that 'A friend asked him why it was the devil and not God who had imposed the penalty. "What's the difference?" he answered. "One has a plus in front, the other a minus."'.
Attributed in posthumous publications

Diana Gabaldon photo
Orson Scott Card photo
D.J. MacHale photo

“Not just chubby fat, I'm talkin' gordo”

Source: The Merchant of Death

Rick Riordan photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society