Quotes about restaurant

A collection of quotes on the topic of restaurant, people, likeness, going.

Quotes about restaurant

“My daughter was asked by a little old lady in a London hotel restaurant what her daddy did. She answered, “He’s a pirate” - I was very proud of that answer.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Daughters

“The flower,’ said Bernard, ‘the red carnation that stood in the vase on the table of the restaurant when we dined together with Percival, is become a six-sided flower; made of six lives.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

section VIII
The Waves (1931)

Flowers

“For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Time, Heart

“I'm deeply saddened by a sense that whites are still superior in this country, in some sense, that if you sit at a restaurant, they're served before a Kenyan is served. If you go through customs, a white person is going to follow orders that "all people are to be treated the same."”

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

.. Said during a visit to Kenya in the late 1980s or early 1990s, recorded in the 20-minute documentary "A Journey In Black And White" by WeSearchr, as reported and quoted in "Documentary Of Young Obama’s Visit To Kenya Is Set To Be Released" http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/19/documentary-of-young-obamas-visit-to-kenya-is-set-to-be-released/ by Alex Pfeiffer, The Daily Caller (19 September 2016) 1980s

People, Sense, Personality, Country

“Looking round that filthy room, with raw meat lying among the refuse on the floor, and cold, clotted saucepans sprawling everywhere, and the sink blocked and coated with grease, I used to wonder whether there could be a restaurant in the world as bad as ours. But the other three all said they had been in dirtier places.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 21; on the state of the kitchen at the newly opened Auberge.

World, Lying

“Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it. … Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants, because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and smartness… The only food at the Hotel X which was ever prepared cleanly was the staff's.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 14

Food

“One day in Modena I was entering a restaurant when I recognized Ferrari sitting at one of the tables. As I passed I tried to greet him, but he turned his head away and pretended to be talking to the person next to him. He was ignoring me! I used to have contact with Adolfo and Omer Orsi of Maserati, Renzo Rivolta of ISO, even Alejandro de Tomaso. But Ferrari never spoke to me again. He was a great man, I admit, but it was so very easy to upset him.”

Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993) Italian industrialist

Referring to Enzo Ferrari, his rival in the sports car business. * Interview with Ferruccio Lamborghini
Thoroughbred & Classic Cars
1991
January 1991
http://web.archive.org/web/20041126032222/http://www.geocities.com/lamboguy/Intervu1.html

Personality

“At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 38
Context: My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a trivial diary is interesting. … At present I do not feel I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.

Men, Feeling, Thinking, Learning

“Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

World, Law, Mathematics, Universe

“Heaven has no taste."
"Now-"
"And not one single sushi restaurant."
A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

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

Pain, Angels

“Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

As quoted in Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson

Men, Night

“The first time I came here, I got the chance to meet some people, and they said, "You know what, Gabriel, have you ever been here, have you ever been to Chicago?" I'm like, "No, it's my first time." They said, "Well, you know, we'd like to take you out eat if you're down." And I'm like, "Well, hello!" [Audience laughs] "I'm very down!" They took me to a restaurant called Portillo's." [Audience cheers] You've heard of it? So, we get there, and it was, it was very, very good. The hot dogs were delicious, I had a chicken chopped salad, it was amazing. I had a beef dip, really really good. But it wasn't until the meal was almost over that these new friends of mine said, "We'd like for you to try something you've might not have ever had before." And I'm like, "That's not likely." I said, "So, what is it you want me to try?" And they said, "Well, they sell a thing here at Portillo's called a Chocolate Cake Shake." [Audience cheers] I said, "You had me at 'Chocolate'." They said, "Well, you gotta go to the special window and you gotta order it from the lady." I go, "Okay, cool." So, I get up and walk to the lady, and she's like, "Can I help you?" I said, "Yes, my friends are telling me that I need to try this thing, called a 'Chocolate Cake Shake'." "Okay, what size would you like?" "How good is it?" "You'll want a large." [Audience laughs] "Alright, can I please have a large Chocolate Cake Shake?" "No problem." [Imitates her entering the order in on the cash register] And I pay, and she turns around and walks over to this little refrigerator that's on the counter, and she opens it up, and she pulls out a piece of chocolate cake. And I'm thinking to myself, "She must have misunderstood what I said. I didn't ask for a piece of chocolate cake, I asked for a Chocolate Cake Shake." She must've heard what I was thinking, because she's walking by and she's like, "It's gonna happen." She walks over to the blender, she takes the freaking lid off, she just looks at me and does this. [Mimes the cashier turning her hand over, dropping the chocolate cake in the blender] And I was like, "NO!" And she's like, "Oh, yeah." [Mimes the lady pushing the button and the blender blending the cake] And she pours it, and she hands me this, like, 44-ounce chocolate shake, which is WAY more than anybody should be drinking. The straw was so thick, you could almost put your thumb in it, okay? So, I grab this shake, and I begin to attempt to drink it. So, I'm [Mimics him trying to suck the shake through the straw, making heavy "MMM" sounds], and I can see the shake coming up. [Still makes the "MMM" sounds, while using his finger to show how show the shake's coming up the straw] And it hit, and then, all of a sudden, [Mimics his nipples getting hard] "WOOOOO!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm Sorry For What I Said When I Was Hungry (2016)

People, Dogs, Way, Drink

“I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus."”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

On the song "Yesterday", written by Paul McCartney
Playboy interview (1980)

Guy, Understanding

“I love daal chawal. I am not a restaurant person. I enjoy home food a lot.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

[mid-day.com, Rani's Food Choice, http://www.mid-day.com/smd/eat/2003/january/42725.htm, 4 November, 2006]
Famous Quotes

Love, Food, Home, Personality

“In 1974 I nearly got into a fistfight with some early academic feminists in a restaurant when I casually alluded to a hormonal element in sex differences. It was utterly unacceptable at that time to think or say such a thing. … If you have any doubts about the effect of hormones on emotion, libido and aggression, have a chat with a transexual, who must take hormones medically. He or she will set you straight.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 185

Sex, Thinking, Time

“I once absent-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

“A tall, blonde, jock-type guy walked into one of the restaurants, and at his side was one of the sexiest girls I had ever seen… I followed them in my car for a few minutes, and when they entered a less inhabited area I opened my window and splashed my iced tea all over them.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Cars, Guy, Girl, Tea

“Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/10/financial-crisis-capitalism-socialism-alternatives (2009).

Children, School, Star, Universe

“It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

"Fidelity"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Faith

“We're not talking light-hearted foolishness here — when we go for stupid we go for BIG STUPID — like people who shoot at you on the freeway, or the Rambos and Rambo-ettes who blow people away in shopping malls and fast-food restaurants with automatic weapons.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 239.

People, Stupidity, Food, Light

“We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.”

Wafa Sultan (1958) American psychistrist

Cited in: John M. Broder. " For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11sultan.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0" in The Saturday Profile, New York Times, March 11, 2006 Interview on Al Jazeera TV, 2006

People

“[At age 11] I noticed this truck full of calves and bonded with one in particular, who kept kissing me. After about an hour the truck driver came out of the restaurant. I asked him what the calf's name was, and he said, "Veal, tomorrow morning by 7 o'clock." That was it: I could no longer disassociate the creature from what was on my plate.”

Daryl Hannah (1960) actress

About her vegetarianism. "One on One with Daryl Hannah", interview with Vegetarian Times (7 April 2010) https://www.vegetariantimes.com/life-garden/one-on-one-with-daryl-hannah.

Age, Kiss

“My first date has been sort of mythologized as ‘Bieber’s Dating Disaster.’ I took her to King’s a buffet restaurant. Yes, I wore a white shirt. Yes, I got spaghetti. No, this was not the brightest idea. But it wasn’t a big trauma, though.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

From Justin's autobiography, First Step 2 Forever: My Story (2010), as quoted by VanityFair http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/in-honor-of-justin-biebers-new-autobiography-justin-bieber-first-step-2-forever-my-story-the-second-through-fifth-steps-2-forever, October 2010

Idea

“One day, I just thought, if you see a bird with a broken leg, you really have the urge to do something about it and help the bird. … Then, at the same time, you go to a restaurant and eat a chicken or something. It doesn’t make any sense. … I just realized that if it’s really compassion that drives you, maybe it’s not enough just to stop eating animals but you maybe should boycott the whole animal industry, because … it’s not what you as a compassionate being would want. So actually you should go one step further and become vegan.”

Patrik Baboumian (1979) German strength-athlete

“Vegan strongman shoulders 550 kg — a record, perhaps — at vegetarian food fest,” interview with Toronto Star (8 September 2013) https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/09/08/vegan_strongman_shoulders_550_kg_a_record_perhaps_at_vegetarian_food_fest.html.

Bird, Sense, Time, Help

“Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

Coffee, Drink, Baby, Weather

“I can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; I don't have to take anything.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 180
Context: I've never met anybody who's had a flashback in my life and I took millions of trips in the Sixties, and I've never met anybody who had any problem. I've had bad trips, but I've had bad trips in real life. I've had a bad trip on a joint. I can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; I don't have to take anything.

“Find what’s hot, find what’s just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.”

Gordon Ramsay (1966) British chef, writer and TV presenter

Bad luck, Learning

“The reality is people (in Melbourne) are scared to go out at restaurants of a night time because they’re followed home by these gangs, home invasions, and cars are stolen and we just need to call it for what it is. Of course, it is African gang violence.”

Peter Dutton (1970) Australian politician

Interview on 2GB, January 2018

People, Cars, Home, Reality

“I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday."”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus."
On the song "Yesterday", written by Paul McCartney
Playboy interview (1980)

Guy

“I was having dinner at a restaurant in Miami, and when the waiter offered me coffee, he asked me if I took it with or without sugar…I said, ‘Chico, you’re Cuban. How can you even ask that? With sugar!’”

Celia Cruz (1925–2003) Cuban singer (1925-2003)

On the origin of her catchphrase "Azúcar"; from a 2000 interview quoted in “Celia Cruz, 77; Queen of Salsa’s Passing Marks the End of a Musical Era” https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-17-me-cruz17-story.html in Los Angeles Times (2003 Jul 17). The quote is discussed in Why Did Celia Cruz Say, "Azúcar"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaHb_ms1YkAWhy in the Smithsonian Music Channel.

Coffee

“Even now I still meet waiters in Bengali restaurants who say, "When we were in the jungle fighting, it was great to know somebody out there was thinking of us."”

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

– George Harrison, 1991 in Elliot J. Huntley, Mystical One: George Harrison – After the Break-up of the Beatles, Guernica Editions (Toronto, ON, 2006; ISBN 1-55071-197-0).

Thinking, Fight

“One the next corner stood a cinder block restaurant with a hand-painted sign that read CHICKEN & WAFFLES. There was a queue of twenty people outside.
“You Americans have the strangest taste. What planet is this?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

People, Reading, Painting

“If a man takes you to a restaurant of his choosing, don’t compliment him. Rave about the quality of the food and he’ll be thrilled, because he took you there.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Food

“If a restaurant offers crayons, I always take them and color throughout the meal. It beats talking to the people I came to dinner with.”

Stephan Pastis (1968) American cartoonist

People, Color

“Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“You piss me off you Salmon… You're too expensive in restaurants.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

“Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant—better left unstirred.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“Isn’t making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“Do they always flirt with biblical quotes?" Asil asked Tad.

In long-suffering tones, Tad said, "They can flirt with the periodic table or a restaurant menu. We've learned to live with it. Get a room you guys.”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

Guy, Quotes, Suffering, Learning

“She avoids deep thought like an empty restaurant, not out of stupidity, but a canny resolve to be happy.”

Alex Shakar (1968) American writer

Source: Luminarium

Happiness, Stupidity, Deep

“He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and café, wearing a dress suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping away the dull hours of the forenoon.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Sleep

“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

Source: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (1943)

Books

“I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Understanding, Cooking

“Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: “We don’t serve colored people here.” I said: “That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.””

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

Nigger: An Autobiography (1964)

People, Color, Time

“Mostly you meet friends when traveling by accident, like by sitting next to them on the train, or in a restaurant, or in a holding cell.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Travel, Training

“Great restaurants are, of course, nothing but mouth-brothels. There is no point in going to them if one intends to keep one's belt buckled.”

Frederic Raphael (1931) British writer

“I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time" so I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Variant: I went to a restaurant that serves «breakfast at any time». So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

Time

“Maybe I'm like acts of Congress or your favorite chinese restaurant -- you don't really want to know what's going on behind the door. I'm a real study in contrast, I expect, looking from without. But it adds up to what you get on stage.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Nicole Keiper (June 7, 2006) "David Lee Roth covers himself on bluegrass tribute ", The Tennessean, p. 1D.

Study

“If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Arlo has repeatedly updated this part through the years to help it match modern life more. He has updated to say that if only one person does it, they say the person in question is a certain amount of years too late. He also referenced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during the 40th anniversary recording. He has also started adding the phrase, "And most of them would be too young to know what a movement was." once he says, "Friends they may think it's a movement."
Alice's Restaurant Massacree

People, Imagination, Thinking, Singing

“In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we affirmed through law that men equal under God are also equal when they seek a job, when they go to get a meal in a restaurant, or when they seek lodging for the night in any State in the Union.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Remarks on the Civil Rights Act (1968)

Men, God, Law, Night

“If you are like most people, you have an assortment of friends and family you can call upon in times of trouble. For instance, if you woke up in the middle of the night and saw a masked woman trying to crawl through your bedroom window, you might call your mother or father to help you push her back out. If you found yourself hopelessly lost in the middle of a strange city, you might ask the police to give you a ride home. And if you were an author locked in an Italian restaurant that was slowly filling up with water, you might call upon your acquaintances in the locksmith, pasta, and sponge businesses to come and rescue you.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

People, Family, Home, Business

“I’d very much like to wake up one morning with a cow of the Friesian variety and walk her down to Soho to the Coach and Horses, stopping on the way to buy twenty Players, ply her with vodkas until closing time, whip her off to an Indian restaurant, take her up to the Colony Room till 5.30 and then to the Yorkminster, Swiss Tavern, Three Greyhounds, get beaten up by Chinese waiters at midnight, have a row with the taxi driver, set the bed on fire, put it out with tears and then wake up on the floor. Could you then milk said cow? I doubt it.”

Jeffrey Bernard (1932–1997) British journalist

Ibid. [when?]

Way, Tear, Time, Horse

“The other night at a neighborhood restaurant the waiter, after mentioning he had read my books, said about himself, “I’m white, I’m nothing.” But that was what I wanted, you see, growing up in America—the freedom of being nothing, the confidence of it, the arrogance. And I achieved it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Books, Confidence, Freedom, Reading

“Restaurants get you in with food to sell you liquor; religions get you in with belief to sell you rules.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 21

Religion, Food

“A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, squishy, wofflesome sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Blandings Castle (1935)

Men, Drink

“As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Mapping the Nation (Mappings Series) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=39IHUaOV9fUC&pg=PA263 (13 November 2012), p. 263.

People

“While I didn't know it at the time, Daniel had suggested to Michael that I play Cora before we had ever met. And prior to our meeting, I was at a restaurant with John Bailey, the director, when I felt this man looking over in our direction and smiling a good deal. I realized, after leaving, that it was Daniel. He later told me that he was having lunch with Michael and had coincidentally asked him earlier that very day about me. It's just a funny thing, isn't it? And I was terribly flattered when he told me this tale. He was also very clear that the decision to cast me as Cora was all Michael's.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)

Smile, Decision, Time

“You need an Ego, if you didn't have an ego you wouldn't know who's mouth to put food in, when eating in a restaurant.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

History Ends in Green (1983)

Food

“It is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual freedom for a purpose such as [giving blacks, Latinos and Jews the right to be served in local motels, hotels and restaurants].”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Letter to the Phoenix, Arizona city council, as cited in The Rehnquist Court : Bill Rehnquist Was Once Considered An Extremist. Now His Views Almost Always Become The Law Of The Land. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-29/magazine/tm-4832_1_rehnquist-court/4, by David G. Savage, in the LA Times, September 29 1991

Freedom

“I get so excited when I know I’m going to a good restaurant, then, when I do the review, I write myself up into such a frenzy that I have to go out and eat all over again.”

Giles Coren (1969) British food critic, television presenter and novelist

Jewish Chronicle, 23 February 2007 http://website.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId50455&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrGiles%20Coren&srchtxt0&srchhead1&srchauthor0&srchsandp0&scsrch0

“We were also misled by M. Michelin's use of the word "impracticable". "Impracticable," we argued with a careful exercise in semantics, leaves just a chance. More than that. As we thought about it, it seemed to give a broad hint that the road was passable to the young and the determined in sturdy motor cars. "Impracticable" — scratched paintwork, discomfort, difficult finding petrol stations, shortage of good restaurants — these it seemed were the sort of hazards the urbane Michelin was trying to convey to us. Alas, he was not.”

John Pearson (author) (1930) author

Gone to Timbuctoo (1961), Ch. 9

Cars, Exercises, Chance

“I DON’T KNOW IF YOU HAVE EVER LUNCHED WITH A VEGETARIAN. Probably you have. If you live in San Francisco you have. Then you’ve seen Dominic, his hand raised, fingers slightly crook’d to summon a waitress: Ma’am? (Pointing to the menu.) Is this dish made with meat stock? The waitress (a Chinese restaurant) takes a moment to divine the desired answer. No. (When in doubt.) So imperial, so sliding scale, so uncomprehending is her no, so wise is her no, finally, so Greek, so Arab, so Catholic, so Brown is her no, Dominic cannot be reassured. Dominic’s vegetarianism has to do with upholding the sacredness of life. He needs a puritan answer. Whereas Peter. Peter is the son of my friend Franz. Peter is as easy in the brown world of maybe as he is in his own white skin. He is wandering through India as I write this. Peter is handsome, gentle, Hindu-intoxicated, slightly blue; his skin is slightly blue. Peter’s veganism has to do with the sacredness of his own body; with the purity of his lungs and his bowels and his liver and his breath. Peter’s vigilance is maniacal: Do you place meat and vegetables on the same grill?”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Life, World

“It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Civil Rights Address

Children, Fear, Color

“Unlawful revenue which, after being conveniently cleaned, is then reinvested within the legal economy: polluting it, corrupting it, forging it, killing it. Whether it’s reinvested in the London property market, in Parisian restaurants, or in hostels on the; to have profited from the crisis, to have fed on the crisis, to have contributed to the crisis. And it’s in the crisis that it finds its satellite activities, such as usury, gambling, counterfeiting. But the most important – and most alarming – aspect of this issue is that it’s exactly in times of crisis that criminal organisations find their safe haven in banks.”

Roberto Saviano (1979) Italian journalist, writer and essayist

Dirty Money in London event (2016)

Time

“In addition to interviewing and participating, we spent a good deal of time in observing the interaction of the various people who make up the restaurant organization. For example, we observed waitresses getting their food from service-pantry girls and picking up drinks from bartenders, and we stood with the checker while she checked the waiters’ orders as they left one kitchen we were studying.”

William Foote Whyte (1914–2000) American sociologist

Source: Human relations in the restaurant industry. 1948, p. 361

People, Food, Girl, Drink

“This is a film about — and also for — not only obsessed clerks in record stores, but the video store clerks who have seen all the movies, and the bookstore employees who have read all the books. Also for bartenders, waitresses, greengrocers in health food stores, kitchen slaves at vegetarian restaurants, the people at GNC who know all the herbs, writers for alternative weeklies, disc jockeys on college stations, salespeople in retro clothing shops, tattoo artists and those they tattoo, poets, artists, musicians, novelists, and the hip, the pierced and the lonely. They may not see themselves but they will recognize people they know.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review of http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/high-fidelity-2000 High Fidelity (31 March 2000) Reviews, Four star reviews

People, Health, Books, Food

“In restaurants, the duration of silence between couples is too often proportionate to the length of their life together.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

Life, Silence

“(Woman sitting by swimming pool) To me the most important quality in a kitchen is that it be in someone else's house, or in a restaurant.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 124

Housing

“As I understand it, the benefits of multiculturalism are that the sterile white-bread cultures of Britain, Canada and Australia get some great ethnic restaurants and a Commonwealth Games opening ceremony that lasts until two in the morning. But in the case of those Muslim ghettoes — in Sydney, in Oslo, in Paris, Copenhagen and Manchester — multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture — the subjugation of women — combine with the worst attributes of Western culture — licence and self-gratification. Tattoed, pierced Pakistani skinhead gangs swaggering down the streets of Northern England are as much a product of multiculturalism as the turban-wearing Sikh Mountie in the vice-regal escort at Rideau Hall. Yet even in the face of the crudest assaults on its most cherished causes — women's rights and gay rights — the political elite turns squeamishly away.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

Battered Westerner Syndrome inflicted by myopic Muslim defenders (2002)

Women, Game, Understanding

“I’m vegan in my fashion and vegetarian in my food. I don’t buy any leather goods or anything made from animal products – no down, nothing. It’s something people should be mindful of. … I think because I came to live in L. A. the transition was simple because vegetarianism is so common there. And I didn’t feel like I was missing that much by being a vegetarian. … I had a moment about 9 years ago. It was so odd. I was talking to my then-boyfriend and he was talking about a fishing trip and how he’d never had the experience of ‘killing’ his food. Even though I had fished my whole life, something just snapped in me and I said, I’m not eating this anymore. … Being vegan is more challenging, especially when it comes to going out to eat. But I found Chicago has great vegetarian and vegan restaurants. … Healthwise, I notice when I wasn’t eating meat anymore I felt so much lighter.”

Torrey DeVitto (1984) actress, model, violinist

"‘Chicago Med’ star Torrey DeVitto takes holistic approach to health, life" https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/chicago-med-star-torrey-devitto-takes-holistic-approach-to-health-life/, interview with Chicago Sun-Times (24 January 2018).

Life, People, Food, Feeling

“Terry Pratchett and I met in February 1985, in a Chinese restaurant. I was a young journalist. He was a former journalist and Electricity Board PR, and a writer who had just published his second Discworld novel. I was the first journalist who had ever interviewed him.
I remember we made each other laugh a lot. We laughed at the same things. We became friends. It was easy.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Good Omens: How Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote a book (2014)

“I relish the fact that we New Yorkers talk funny, and that art deco skyscrapers symbolize our city. […] But we must set boundaries to this love of variety. I accept the need, even the blessings, of standardization in practical matters: we require a worldwide telephone dialing system and a network of national highways […]. We need domains of standardization, and realms of regionalism, each in its appropriate place, and linked in mutual respect and recognition. I accept and even want McDonalds at the highway interchange—but not in my little neighborhood of ethnic restaurants, and not next to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Baseball : Joys and Lamentations", p. 309; originally published in The New York Review of Books (1993-11-04)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Love, Art

“I don’t like eating in the dark. Dimly lit restaurants always make me think they’re trying to hide the food.”

Michael Kurland book The Unicorn Girl

Source: The Unicorn Girl (1969), Chapter 9 (p. 130)

Food, Thinking

“And I want to tell you, for these members of his Cabinet who remain and try to defend him, they're not going to be able to go to a restaurant, to be able to stop at a gas station, to be able to shop at a department store. The people are going to turn on them, they're going to protest, they're going to absolutely harass them until they tell the president: 'No, I can't hang with you.'”

Maxine Waters (1938) U.S. Representative from California

Remarks regarding the illegal immigrant family separation crisis, quoted in The Washington Post (25 June 2018) " ‘Be careful what you wish for Max!’: Trump takes aim at Waters after she calls for public harassment of his Cabinet https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/06/25/democratic-congresswoman-maxine-waters-calls-for-harassment-of-trump-officials/"

People

“Fortunately, President Obama and most world leaders understand that the idea that Iran's goal is not to develop nuclear weapons is ridiculous. Yet incredibly, some are prepared to accept an idea only slightly less preposterous: That we should accept a world in which the Ayatollahs have atomic bombs. Sure, they say, Iran is cruel, but it's not crazy. It's detestable but it's deterrable. Responsible leaders should not bet the security of their countries on the belief that the world's most dangerous regime won't use the world's most dangerous weapons. And I promise you that as Prime Minister, I will never gamble with the security of Israel. From the beginning, the Ayatollah regime has broken every international rule and flouted every norm. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats and sent its own children through mine fields. It hangs gays and stones women. It supports Assad's brutal slaughter of the Syrian people. Iran is the world's foremost sponsor of terror. It sponsors Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and terrorists throughout the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Iran's proxies have dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers, planted thousands of roadside bombs, and fired over twenty thousand missiles at civilians. Through terror from the skies and terror on the ground, Iran is responsible for the murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. In 1983, Iran's proxy Hezbollah blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 240 American servicemen. In the last decade, its been responsible for murdering and maiming American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just a few months ago, it tried to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in a restaurant just a few blocks from here. The assassins didn't care that several Senators and members of Congress would have been murdered in the process. Iran accuses the American government of orchestrating 9/11, and it denies the Holocaust. Iran brazenly calls for Israel's destruction, and they work for its destruction – each day, every day. This is how Iran behaves today, without nuclear weapons. Think of how they will behave tomorrow, with nuclear weapons. Iran will be even more reckless and far more dangerous.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference http://www.aipac.org/pc/videos/2012/monday-gala-plenary/prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu (March 2012). 2010s, 2012

Women, Children, People, World

“We [Emilio and I] have diversified: We run four restaurants, a hotel, a recording studio, a publishing company, and we have our corporate offices and a lot of other real estate.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Billboard Magazine (11 October 2003)
2007, 2008

“There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "MFer, I want more iced tea." You know, I mean everybody was— it was like goin' into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb, in the sense of people were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun, and there wasn't any kinda craziness at all.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

on his meal with Al Sharpton at Sylvia's in Harlem

People, Sense, Tea, Personality

“Rachel Trachtenburg: I really like the food at that place (Sidewalk Cafe). They have salads and pastas and stuff like that. What's your favorite food?
Kimya Dawson: I like cherries.
Rachel: That's a fruit. I said food.
Kimya: Fruit's food.
Rachel: You don't sit down and eat it. You don't eat it at a restaurant, like, "Oh, I'd like a fruit, please." You say, "I'd like a pizza please, or the pasta." Do you like Indian food? Mexican food? Italian food?
Kimya: Japanese food.
Rachel: Okay.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Time Out New York Kids http://www.timeoutnykids.com/music/1/w1.mar03.music.opener.html

Food

“In the restaurant, eyes / above a soup bowl's rim / Is it she? / Changes shape, is and is not. / Now she's spat out a bit of bone, / I don't think it's her, / I'm leaving, I'm done eating. / This is a long and mad journey: / I see her on the faces of others, my own.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Thinking, Change, Madness

“And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?”

Woody Allen book Mere Anarchy

Mere Anarchy (2007)

“I’m a gluten-free, soy-free vegan who also tries to be sugar-free as much as possible, so it can be crazy on the road trying to find things to eat. Once we were in Madison, Wisconsin and I was trying to explain what veganism was at a restaurant, and they went, “So can you eat roast beef?” […] When I was doing Celebrity Big Brother and told me that I wasn’t the spokesperson for gay people, I said… well wait a second, I’m not a dog, does that mean I can’t fight and speak up for animal rights?”

Michelle Visage (1968) American singer, radio DJ, TV host

"An Interview with the One and Only Michelle Visage", HuffPost (28 July 2017) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/an-interview-with-the-one-and-only-michelle-visage_us_597b6b6ce4b09982b737640f.

People, Dogs, Waiting, Animals

“She wondered how people would remember her. She had not made enough to spread her wealth around like Carnegie, to erase any sins that had attached to her name, she had failed, she had not reached the golden bough. The liberals would cheer her to death. They would light marijuana cigarettes and drive to their sushi restaurants and eat fresh food that had traveled eight thousand miles. They would spend all of supper complaining about people like her, and when they got home their houses would be cold and they’d press a button on a wall to get warm. The whole time complaining about big oil.”

Philipp Meyer (1974) American writer

Source: The Son (2013), p. 82

Death, People, Food, Travel

“We could walk into a Chinese restaurant right here in Chicago. And the waiter could have been born here, raised here, went to college here, he has never left the city limits. I'm the idiot that walks in that restaurant and goes [in exaggerated Chinese] "Uh, yes. I'll have fried rice. Egg roll…" And you can see him go "I am so going to spit in your food, I swear to God." And it drives my daughter crazy. 'Cause she goes "why do you do that? That is so insulting to them!"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Aged and Confused (2009)

God, Food, Daughters

“I tend to be that guy, you know? When me and four friends walk into a restaurant and nobody else talks to the host, I say, “Yeah, it’s a table for five.” I don’t want to be that guy; I wish someone else would say something. But it always ends up being me, and I hate what comes with that. There’s a lot of baggage—ego and narcissism—that comes with leadership. It’s difficult to cope with at times.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

On being the drummer (not the frontman) of the band w:Dead Weather "This is not a Spinal Tap" http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_10157. GQ magazine. (accessed 2009-07-15) 2010

Hate, Guy, Time

“There's nothing like spending other peoples money, Gordon and Tony discovered this very quickly, and have been going crazy, ordering off the menu ever since. Tony quickly exited the restaurant, leaving Gordon footing the bill, and thats why we're in the mess we're in now. Meanwhile Tony's laughing all the way to the bank where his £14 million is sitting pretty. It's just disgraceful behaviour and ordinary people are suffering because of the megalomania of those two crooks.”

Munir Butt (1940–2015) British diplomat

Speaking bluntly at a conference at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2009.[citation needed]

Money, People, Way, Suffering

“The idea of a terrorist attack that assaults innocent human beings in a building or a mall or a restaurant is bad enough. Yet the terrorist mind that looks at a passenger plane and sees the fuel and the intensity of the blast, and sees the rocket engines that will carry it into the heart of destruction like a cruise missile, but who does not see the humanity of one single soul on that airplane, is the chilling truth of what we're up against.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Black America's Political Action Committee (BAMPAC), September 25, 2001. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/01_09_25bampac.htm. 2009

Truth, Soul, Idea, Heart

“I thought some day I'd run into June and find my tongue and we'd go to a movie together. I'd choose something foreign with subtitles to show how sophisticated I was and she'd admire me and let me kiss her in the dark, missing a dozen subtitles and the thread of the story. That wouldn't matter because we'd have plenty to talk about in a cozy Italian restaurant where candles flickered and her red hair twinkled back and who knows what that would lead to because that was as far as my dreams would go.”

Frank McCourt book Teacher Man

Teacher Man (2005)

Dreams, Kiss

“To show that this end [of art by its dissolution into real life] is only a beginning, it is essential that.... the series of galleries [of the future museum of modern art] be followed by a room in which painting and sculpture will be realized by the interior itself.... demonstrating that what is lost for art is gained for life. This room could therefore be designed for use as a lecture room, a restaurant.... as a bar with an American jazz band.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Mondrian's reaction on a questionnaire (c. 1931?)
Quote of Mondrian, as cited in Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 166
1930's

Life, Art, Future, Painting

“I had a sudden longing, like a pain, for the hot smelly East, and remembered that Everett had said something about an Indian restaurant. I asked the barman, a hot-haired Irishman, and he asked one of the business-men (who, I saw now, was a Pakistani) and then was able to tell me that the Calicut Restaurant was on Egg Street, by the Poultry Market. I went there and ate insipid dahl, tough chicken, greasy pappadams, and rice that had congealed to a pudding. The décor was depressing – brown oily wallpaper, a calendar with a Bengali pin-up (buff, deliriously plump, about thirty-eight) – and it was evident that the few Indian students were eating the special curry prepared for the staff. The manager was from Pondicherry : he caled me ‘monsieur’ and was not impressed by my complaints. At least one of the waiters was from Jamaica. I went out angry and, at a pub where the landlady sniffed in curlers, drank brandy till closing-time.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Men, Pain, Business, Time

“It took us two years to write, produce and arange the new album [90 Millas]. Aside from that, I wrote the two children's books based on Noelle, my bulldog, and I was fortunate enought that they ended up on the New York Times bestseller list. By now, we've got seven restaurants and two hotels, which we're very hands-on with, and we're building a third one in Vero Beach, Florida, And I took a vacation for once, because ever since Emilio and I got married in'78, every trip we've take has been for work. So last year, we went to Egypt, Panama, the Bahamas and Greece. It was fantastic!”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Children, Books, Time

“If I'm in, you know, especially in a poor area, and I see guys walking like they're thugs down the street, I don't care what color they are, I go "That guy looks like they're a thug, and looks like they're tough, okay… If they try to shake me down I'm gonna ignore them and keep walking, and if they come up to me and try to put a hand on me, I'm gonna punch 'em right in the throat. 'Cause I don't wanna jump on top on of 'em and hurt my knees and stuff, when I slam their head in the ground. Plus, I don't wanna kill 'em. 'Cause then I'd have to go to jail and stuff, and they'd have to find that it was done in self defense. Been down that road." So, I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, "Alright. I'm gonna punch this guy in the throat." I'm thinking how hard am I gonna punch him. And I'm not thinking he's a black guy. I'm thinking the guy's walking like a thug, thinks they're tough, and I'm thinking about how I'm going to defend myself. Just like when I've been at the Coast, a few years ago, and walk out of a restaurant in South Padre and they're having a biker rally—and it wasn't like a nice biker rally, most rallies are nice people—it was like thug wannabes, rode up with a motorcycle…and were looking at me, and I was thinking "Okay. Alright. That guy is taking his helmet off. I'm gonna punch him in the throat the minute he tries to get up and do something, and then I'm gonna assault those next three guys. Then they'll probably pull a weapon. I need to take that." I mean, that's what I'm thinking whenever something like that is going on. I can't help it. I'm thinking, "Alright, I'm ready to kill." That's just how I am. And I'm thinking, "Alright. Okay. Instantly assess these guys. These are probably ex-con, real criminals. I've got my three kids here. That gives me, you know, just turbo dinosaur power. And I'm thinking, "Control yourself. Don't have a fight, unless you absolutely got to."”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

You know, the man in me is ready to take all on! and... you know what I'm talking about, don't you? ARGH, you scum! I hate gang members and filth! And it has nothing to do with black people. But I will stump your head in if you start a fight with me, you thug scum! Anyways, excuse me ladies and gentlemen. "Alex Jones Self-Defense Rant" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIMJ_pxy2eU, July 2013. 2013

Hate, People, Color, Guy