Quotes about fat
A collection of quotes on the topic of fat, likeness, look, doing.
Quotes about fat
“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 (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series
from Pansy Hermiones, 2006
2010s
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 (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 (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
“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 (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
“A narrow mind and a fat head invariably come on the same person.”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
“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
“Your as slow as a fat kid on crutches”
P. C. Cast (1960) American writer
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: Oh My Goth
“The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
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).
William C. Roberts (1932) American physician
Quoted in Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet, [//books.google.it/books?id=H_clxwd27CgC&pg=PT107 ch. 5]
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
“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
“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)
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 (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Canto 5
Phantasmagoria (1869)
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 (1206–1280) Dominican friar
Twenty-Six Books on Animals [De animalibus libri XXVI]; cited in: Plinio Prioreschi (1996) A History of Medicine: Medieval Medicine. p. 94.
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 (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
In an article written for the New York Daily Tribune, September 16, 1857 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/09/16.htm
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 (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Well, they've got the Union dissolved up to the ankle, but no farther!
1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)
“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 (1906–1998) French mathematician
From At home with André and Simone Weil by Sylvie Weil, p. 31 https://books.google.com/books?id=OdeDlT9-GBUC&pg=PA31 <br class="br">Quote About
Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader
Quinn (ed), Faithful History: Essays On Writing Mormon History, p 103, fn 22
Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey
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.
“He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.”
Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey
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 book Franny and Zooey
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.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Well, they've got the Union dissolved up to the ankle, but no farther!
1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)
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)
“I’d rather be short, fat, and ugly than take after that man. (Nick)”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist
Source: Infinity
“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
“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
“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
“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…
Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
“I chose fat and functional over slender and miserable.”
Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
“A recent police study found that you're much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.”
Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor
“Why so scrawny, cat?
Starving for fat fish or mice…
Or backyard love?”
Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet
Source: Japanese Haiku
“Enormous? Did you just call me FAT? I am not fat. - Jace”
Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes
City of Ashes
Variant: Enormous? Did you just call me fat?
Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer
Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead
“Inside every fat man, there's a thin man trying to get out.”
Anthony Horowitz book Scorpia Rising
Source: Scorpia Rising
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
“If desire did not dim the brain, nobody would ever get married, drunk, or fat.”
Orson Scott Card book Ender in Exile
Source: Ender in Exile
“Not just chubby fat, I'm talkin' gordo”
D.J. MacHale book The Merchant of Death
Source: The Merchant of Death
Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer
Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead
“(Man in bar) Can you imagine a world without men? (Sylvia) No crime, and lots of happy, fat women.”
Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist
Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, pp. 212-213
“Makes us appreciate blessing, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus.”
Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters
Source: The Sea of Monsters
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