Quotes about steak (68 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (1988), p. 157

Marriage , Home

“On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Fools , Home

“It is only if everyone becomes a vegetarian that reincarnation becomes possible and acceptable. Otherwise, steak lovers cannot be trusted with those who reincarnate as animals.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Animals , Lovers

“I had too much praise, too much flattery and fawning over and I needed to remember who I was, where I came from. One time I called a relative in Tupelo. It was Christmas and they were havin' dinner. I asked, 'What?' and she was kind of quiet, then said, 'Meat loaf.' I was shocked as we'd had the best, you know, turkey, ham, steak, everything. She said that it was near the first and they'd run out of money so they just had meat loaf. It hurt me. and so, I ate meat loaf for about eight months, every night, so I'd remember where I came from and to remind me of how many people were unable to have what I did. It was kind of a penance…”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

from the book Blue Star Love by By Maia Chrystine Nartoomid. http://safehaven.0catch.com/quotes.htm,originally

Money , People , Time , Christmas

“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Often attributed to Twain online, but unsourced. Alternate source: "The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." — Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon, 1951, p. 188.
Misattributed

Baby

“We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak?”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

Problem

“I lift barbell plates. I eat T-bone steaks. I'm sweeter than a German chocolate cake. How much more of me can you take?”

Billy Graham (wrestler) (1943–2023) American professional wrestler, american football player, bodybuilder

Billy Graham, Tangled Ropes: Superstar Billy Graham (2006)

“Twenty years ago I thought: "What's the difference between eating a bloody steak and killing my dog, slitting him open and roasting him?" I've always loved animals but it was around the late 80s that I realised I had to go vegetarian. A lot of things converged in my life then – musically, emotionally – but mainly it was my love of animals and spending so much time touring that made me decide I had to change my diet. In the Runaways we used to eat a ton of junk food. So something had to give.”

Joan Jett (1958) American rock musician, former member of The Runaways

“What's in your basket, Joan Jett?”, in theguardian.com (18 July 2010) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/joan-jett-vegetarian-diet.

Love , Life , Food , Dogs

“It's been at least 20 years. I used to eat burgers and steak, and I would just be knocked out afterward; I had to give it up. The first thing was dairy. I was about 24 years old and I had tons of acne and mucus. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God she was right.”

Woody Harrelson (1961) American actor

Interview with Maxim magazine, explaining why he became vegan; as quoted in "Woody Harrelson’s Vegan Acne Cure", in HuffingtonPost.com (23 September 2009) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/woody-harrelsons-vegan-ac_n_295765.html.

God , Girl

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Indirect quote on The National (CBC TV), Aug. 13

Food , Time , Waiting , Cooking

“If he killed her I’m going to beat him bloody and eat him piece by piece, slowly, with steak sauce.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

“… Ivy’s COOK THE STEAK, DON’T STAKE THE COOK apron…”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

Cooking

“I hate reality but it's still the best place to get a good steak.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Hate , Reality

“I love sushi, I love fried chicken, I love steak. But there is a limit to my love”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Love

“I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

People , World , Cooking

“Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.”

Larry McMurtry (1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter

Source: In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas

“Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians--except for the occasional mountain lion steak.”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

Mountain

“Yet from the viewpoint of the herd, rather than that of the shepherd, it’s hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe. Their evolutionary ‘success’ is meaningless. A rare wild rhinoceros on the brink of extinction is probably more satisfied than a calf who spends its short life inside a tiny box, fattened to produce juicy steaks. The contented rhinoceros is no less content for being among the last of its kind. The numerical success of the calf’s species is little consolation for the suffering the individual endures.”

Yuval Noah Harari book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Life , Suffering , Success , Animals

“Cook: We have some breast of flamingo and gazelle steaks.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)
Variant: Jack: Breast of flamingo and gazelle steaks?

Cooking

“[takes a drag of his cigarette] Mmmm mmmm, tastes like steak and potatoes doesn't it? Mmmm.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Sane Man (1989)

“Would the delicate ladies who devour sanguinary beef-steaks like to see their sons working as slaughtermen? If not, then they have no right to put this task upon some other woman's son. We have no right to impose upon a fellow-citizen work which we ourselves should decline to do. It may be said that we force no one to undertake this abominable means of livelihood; but that is a mere tergiversation, for in eating this horrible food we are making a demand that some one shall brutalize himself, that some one shall degrade himself below the level of humanity.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Vegetarianism and Occultism (1913), p. 27

Food

“Since it's not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the benefits of people trying to get more for themselves. There's probably widespread agreement that it's a wonderful thing that most of us own cars. Is there anyone who believes that the reason we have cars is because Detroit assembly line workers care about us? It's also wonderful that Texas cattle ranchers make the sacrifices of time and effort caring for steer so that New Yorkers can have beef on their supermarket shelves. It is also wonderful that Idaho potato growers arise early to do back-breaking work in the hot sun to ensure that New Yorkers also have potatoes on their supermarket shelves. Again, is there anyone who believes that ranchers and potato growers, who make these sacrifices, do so because they care about New Yorkers? They might hate New Yorkers. New Yorkers have beef and potatoes because Texas cattle ranchers and Idaho potato growers care about themselves and they want more for themselves. How much steak and potatoes would New Yorkers have if it all depended on human love and kindness? I would feel sorry for New Yorkers. Thinking this way bothers some people because they are more concerned with the motives behind a set of actions rather than the results. This is what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant in The Wealth of Nations when he said, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests."”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

Love , Hate , People , Cars

“Better than big business is clean business.
To an honest man the most satisfactory reflection after he has amassed his dollars is not that they are many but that they are all clean.
What constitutes clean business? The answer is obvious enough, but the obvious needs restating every once in a while.
"A clean profit is one that has also made a profit for the other fellow."
This is fundamental moral axiom in business. Any gain that arises from another's loss is dirty.
Any business whose prosperity depends upon damage to any other business is a menace to the general welfare.
That is why gambling, direct or indirect, is criminal, why lotteries are prohibited by law, and why even gambling slot-machine devices are not tolerated in civilized countries. When a farmer sells a housekeeper a barrel of apples, when a milkman sells her a quart of milk, or the butcher a pound of steak, or the dry-goods man a yard of muslin, the housekeeper is benefited quite as much as those who get her money.
That is the type of honest, clean business, the kind that helps everybody and hurts nobody. Of course as business becomes more complicated it grows more difficult to tell so clearly whether both sides are equally prospered. No principle is automatic. It requires sense, judgment, and conscience to keep clean; but it can be done, nevertheless, if one is determined to maintain his self-respect. A man that makes a habit, every deal he goes into, of asking himself, "What is there in it for the other fellow?" and who refuses to enter into any transaction where his own gain will mean disaster to some one else, cannot go for wrong.
And no matter how many memorial churches he builds, nor how much he gives to charity, or how many monuments he erects in his native town, any man who has made his money by ruining other people is not entitled to be called decent. A factory where many workmen are given employment, paid living wages, and where health and life are conserved, is doing more real good in the world than ten eleemosynary institutions.
The only really charitable dollar is the clean dollar. And the nasty dollar, wrung from wronged workmen or gotten by unfair methods from competitors, is never nastier than when it pretends to serve the Lord by being given to the poor, to education, or to religion. In the long run all such dollars tend to corrupt and disrupt society.
Of all vile money, that which is the most unspeakably vile is the money spent for war; for war is conceived by the blundering ignorance and selfishness of rulers, is fanned to flame by the very lowest passions of humanity, and prostitutes the highest ideal of men; zeal for the common good; to the business of killing human beings and destroying the results of their collective work.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), Clean Business

Life , Men , Money , War

“Now my muff smells like steak.”

Gina Barberi

Radio From Hell (July 13, 2006)

“He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 24

Dogs

“No steak "every now and then," no ribs, no burgers, none of that. … Culturally there needs to be a change, and why not start with myself?”

Montell Owens (1984) American football player, running back

"Vegan athletes solve the 'protein problem'" https://abc7.com/archive/9060743/, interview with ABC 7 (April 10, 2013).

Change

“That night he walked into my room. He sat on the bed, his long arms dangling to the floor…Then he began on the subject of meat. "How would you like a big thick steak?"”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

he said, his lips loose.
Ask the Dust (1939)

Night

“Poor countries sell their grain to the West for hard currency while their own children starve in their arms. And the West feeds it to livestock... So we can eat a steak? I bet I am not the only one in the room who sees this as a crime?”

Philip Wollen (1950) Australian philanthropist

"Animals Should Be Off the Menu" (2012)

Children , Country

“The self-awareness that grows out of the habit of witnessing is nonjudgmental. I look at my actions, my feelings, my experience with soft and compassionate eyes, from a great distance as if I were God or a novelist. The chief rule of the witness is: Judge not. Do not identify with or against anything you observe. The witness must be amoral, a pure phenomenologist. The courtroom of civil conscience must be closed for a time. There is a time when the outlaw switches from contemplation to trans-moral action. But in order to stop the reactionary patterns of thought and behavior that make up the personality, there must be a prior time of inaction. As I gain skill as an objective and compassionate witness, my identity gradually shifts from my persona to my self. In place of the old compulsive, preprogrammed reactions, I find a growing ability to pause between the stimulus and the response. I cease being merely a biological creature who reacts automatically to steak and potatoes, the lure of immediate sex, or the invasion of my territory; I deliberate and choose what is most desirable. I am no longer captive either to my impulses or to the judgments made upon me by my society. In the newfound silence, I find the freedom to disengage from my old self-images and addictions.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 137

God , Sex , Behavior , Feeling

“I'm not mad at you I'm mad a the cheese-steak.”

Kerry Jackson

Radio From Hell (June 9, 2006)

Madness

“The first article in the foregoing quotation brings to my recollection the extraordinary performances of a professed fire-eater, whose name was Powel, well known in different parts of the kingdom about forty years ago. Among other wonderful feats, I saw him do the following: He ate the burning coals from the fire; he put a large bunch of matches lighted into his mouth, and blew the smoke of the sulphur through his nostrils; he carried a red-hot heater round the room in his teeth; and broiled a piece of beef-steak upon his tongue. To perform this, he lighted a piece of charcoal, which he put into his mouth beneath his tongue, the beef was laid upon the top; and one of the spectators blew upon the charcoal, to prevent the heat decreasing, till the meat was sufficiently broiled. By way of conclusion, he made a composition of pitch, brimstone, and other compustibles, to which he added several pieces of lead; the whole was melted in an iron ladle, and then set on fire; this he called his soup; and, taking it out of the ladle with a spoon of the same metal, he ate it in its state of liquefaction, and blazing furiously, without appearing to sustain the least injury.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 237
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Way , Light , Appearance , Parting

“I am somebody.
I am a somebody.
I am a child of God.
I may not be educated but I am somebody.
I may not have any money but I am somebody.
I may not eat steak every day but I am somebody.
I may not look the way you look but I am somebody.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Prayer during the Poor People's Campaign march in Washington, DC (21 May 1968)

Money , God , Education , Way

“It's a Cuban thing. But he ate very well — lots of organic steak. When he was diagnosed, the doctors told him he'd had cancer for six years. This dated back to around the time of Chernobyl, when he was in Wales doing a gig and it was raining. He got absolutely soaked to the skin. He then drove five hours up to the north of Scotland, still wearing the wet jacket. Later, he read in a newspaper that the sheep in the part of Wales where he had been performing had been killed because the rain contained fallout from the disaster. His cancer was right across the back of his shoulders, where the rain had first hit him. He reckoned it was that which caused it.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

An uphill challenge fit for two Article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/05/05/hsien05.xml. telegraph.co.uk. May 5, 2004.
Guillory speaks about her father, Cuban guitarist Isaac Guillory.

Time , Reading , Parting

“In exporting the Great American Steak Religion we are exporting a desire for the impossible. The earth could never provide the majority of its people with the grain-fed-meat-centered diet that Americans take for granted.”

Frances Moore Lappé book Diet for a Small Planet

Source: Diet for a Small Planet, pp. 94-95

People , Religion

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH ASSHOLES, BABY? YOU'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE, I'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE! YOU GO TO THE STORE AND BUY A PORTERHOUSE STEAK, THAT HAD AN ASSHOLE! ASSHOLES COVER THE EARTH! IN A WAY TREES HAVE ASSHOLES BUT YOU CAN'T FIND THEM, THEY JUST DROP THEIR LEAVES. YOUR ASSHOLE, MY ASSHOLE, THE WORLD IS FULL OF BILLIONS OF ASSHOLES. THE PRESIDENT HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE CARWASH BOY HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE JUDGE AND THE MURDERER HAVE ASSHOLES... EVEN THE PURPLE STICKINPIN HAS AN ASSHOLE!”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Post Office (1971)

World , Way , Boy , Tree

“It was impossible to get a decent meal, or even snack, anywhere, burned flapjacks and vulcanized steaks being as appetizing as things got. It also quickly became evident — horribly evident — that no one in the city knew how to make coffee, as if there were some sort of stultified consensus, or even city ordinance, about never waking up.”

Thomas Pynchon book Against the Day

Source: Against the Day (2006), p. 66

Coffee

“It really began with my own personal evolution that brought me to a new way of thinking for ethical reasons: I wanted to get the violence out of my life and adopt a truly non-violent lifestyle. One night while pontificating over my pursuit of a non-violent lifestyle over steak dinner with a friend, he leaned forward and said, “This is all very nice, Michael, but if you really want to eliminate the violence in your life, you might want to start with that piece of flesh on your plate—because your desire for that taste of meat in your mouth is paying for the death of an animal.” When he said that, a little voice inside me said, “You know, he’s right.” And it didn’t take long before my leather shoes had to go, along with milk, cheese and everything else in my life with hidden violence attached that I could jettison, or at least, modify. I became vegan in my diet, lost 20 pounds, and saw my borderline high blood pressure drop to normal levels along with a reduction in my cholesterol levels. I then began applying this to my patients—and they saw the same great results.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

"Interview with Michael Klaper, M.D." https://web.archive.org/web/20141113185517/https://www.healthscience.org/about/nha-history/books-and-publications/health-science-summer-2013/interview-michael-klaper-md by Mark Huberman, National Health Association (29 April 2014).

Life , Death , Shoe , Way

“His meat craze had got out of hand. All day I heard him frying cheap steaks, the odor creeping under my door. It gave me a mad desire for meat…But he never offered me so much as the scraps from his plate.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Madness

“Levin wanted friendship and got friendliness; he wanted steak and they offered spam.”

Bernard Malamud book A New Life

A New Life (1961; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) p. 111

Friendship

“Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian.”

Heywood Broun (1888–1939) American sportswriter

Quoted by Lin Yutang in The Wisdom of China and India http://books.google.com/books?ei=hCIHT_v4Bqbu0gGz0YWMAw&id=T1gOAAAAYAAJ&q="Appeasers+believe+that+if+you+keep+on+throwing+steaks+to+a+tiger+the+tiger+will+become+a+vegetarian"&pg=PA268#v=onepage (1942)

“The whiskey tasted like bear steaks and river mud and the flesh of an oak tree. I had another swallow because it tasted so good.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Tree

“.. that the Army is using defoliants in Honduras to create fire-free zones. This charge has been strongly denied by the Pentagon. Asked to comment just prior to leaving for Hawaii, where he will convalesce for the next two or three weeks, Prexy said, quote, Well, if you can’t see them you can’t shoot them. End quote. Support has been growing for a bill which Senator Richard Howell will introduce at the earliest opportunity, forbidding the issue of a passport to any male between sixteen and sixty not in possession of a valid discharge certificate or medical exemption. Welcoming the proposal, a Pentagon spokesman today admitted that of the last class called for the draft more than one in three failed to report. Your steaks are going to cost you more. This warning was today issued by the Department of Agriculture. The price of animal fodder has quote taken off like a rocket unquote, following the mysterious...”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

.
June “IF IT MOVES, SHOOT IT”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Quotes , Support , Animals

“The next time you dine on sushi -- or sashimi, or swordfish steak, or shrimp cocktail, whatever wildlife you happen to enjoy from the ocean -- think of the real cost. For every pound that goes to market, more than 10 pounds, even 100 pounds, may be thrown away as bycatch. This is the consequence of not knowing that there are limits to what we can take out of the sea.”

Sylvia Earle (1935) American oceanographer

Quote from her 2009 TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/sylvia_earle_s_ted_prize_wish_to_protect_our_oceans

Thinking , Time , Sea

“We asked for steak and chips,
They brought us something stewed,
It smelt like it was off,
And it looked extremely rude.”

Myles Rudge (1926–2007) English songwriter and scriptwriter

Song Greek Holiday

“I am come to a tavern alone to eat a steak, after which I shall return to the office.”

Richard Steele (1672–1729) British politician

28 October 1707
Letters to His Wife (1707-1712)

“One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups, to a child, is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. The child has not yet had the chance to know what it is like to be a grownup; he believes, even, that being a grownup is a mistake he will never make—when he grows up he will keep on being a child, a big child with power. So the child and grownup live in mutual love, misunderstanding, and distaste. Children shout and play and cry and want candy; grownups say Ssh! and work and scold and want steak. There is no disputing tastes as contradictory as these. It is not just Mowgli who was raised by a couple of wolves; any child is raised by a couple of grownups. Father and Mother may be nearer and dearer than anyone will ever be again—still, they are members of a different species. God is, I suppose, what our parents were; certainly the ogre of the stories is so huge, so powerful, and so stupid because that is the way a grownup looks to a child.
Grownups forget or cannot believe that they seem even more unreasonable to children than children seem to them.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“An Unread Book’, pp. 51–52
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Love , God , Children , Stupidity

“Up to eight feet long and as heavy as a lioness, the adult Komodo dragon brandishes steak-knifelike teeth - sharp, recurved blades with serrated cutting edges. Showing the same sagacity found in veteran Nile crocodiles, fully adult dragons know their hunting territory from years of experience. They know where to lie along hilly game trails, awaiting the light footsteps of a deer. Attacks are instant successes or failures because the ora has no stamina, and if it misses on the first short rush, it has little sustained speed for a long pursuit. When an attack succeeds, the cruel rows of slashing teeth cut fearful wounds on the rump and thigh of ambushed animals and the stricken prey may die of massive infection days later even if it manages to break free from the dragon's mouth. Tethered livestock suffer truly terrible cuts across the legs when an ora slinks into the compound under cover of the warm Indonesian nights. Several humans, both native and European visitors, have died in savage daylight attacks. The victims simply had no warning sign that the ora was waiting patiently a few feet from the trail's edge.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 62-63
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Lie , Fear , Game , Failure

“I’m a vegan. But, no one believes it because when you’re out in the field, most of your meal options involve meat with a side of something fried. I’ve learned how to be creative and improvise and can eat anywhere — even a steak house or a gas station.”

Nicole Lapin (1984) American journalist

Interview with 944 Magazine, "Woman of Power." http://www.nicolelapin.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=246&fullsize=1(November 2007)

Learning , Housing

“I like the United States in many ways. I like the people, I like the atmosphere. I like to travel around also when I am able to get out of Washington or New York, and I like the food. Especially the meat. The steak is excellent, and I had a very good steak in New York a couple of days ago and you can't get that kind of steak in Europe, so big and so tender, that's one of the reasons I like to come to the United States.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

Interview with Aroop Mukharji https://soundcloud.com/belfercenter/office-hours-jens-stoltenberg-on-nato-russia-and-his-favorite-american-meal?in=belfercenter/sets/office-hours
2010s

People , Food , Way , Travel

“Steaks every day for me. Steaks for breakfast. Steaks for lunch. Steaks for brunch. Grass-fed, massaged beef. All day long.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

"UFC 197 press conference" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75xAdA3uVeY (January 2016), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2016

Grass

“I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

To a waitress, in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

Horse

“He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogie of electricity- Available At Your Nearest Switch plate Or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nerdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too- Shower With A Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled in the dark when you were all frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation- in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want- hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breech birth, then I've got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha.”

Stephen King Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary (1983)

Death , Food , Birth , Failure

“One of the things that pushed me to change my diet is that the average football player dies at 56 years of age. That's because they're constantly drinking milk and whey protein shakes, eating steak and chicken. … We thought, 'We're big dudes, we need to eat meat to be men.' I thought that too. But you're screwing your insides up. You're taking advantage of a helpless animal. You're killing a life that you don't need to take. With dairy, you're stealing breast milk that's meant for the baby cows and drinking it yourself. How is that manly? Men are supposed to be protectors.”

David Carter (1987) Player of American Football

Interview in the book What the Health https://books.google.it/books?id=FIY8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Eunice Wong (Xlibris, 2017).

Life , Men , Age , Drink

“Bring tea for the Tillerman,
Steak for the sun,
Wine for the women who made the rain come,
Seagulls sing your hearts away
‘Cause while the sinners sin, the children play”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Tea For The Tillerman
Song lyrics, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

Women , Children , Wine , Singing

“We don’t realize that in the sizzle of our steaks there is the suffering of animals, the mining of our topsoil, the slashing of our forests, the harming of our economy, and the eroding of our health. We don’t hear in the sizzle the cry of the hungry millions who might otherwise be fed. We don’t see the toxic poisons accumulating in the food chains, poisoning our children and our earth for generations to come. But once we become aware of the impact of our food choices, we can never really forget… All things are deeply connected, and so the choices we make in our daily lives have enormous influence, not only on our own health and vitality, but also on the lives of other beings, and indeed on the destiny of life on earth. Thankfully, we have cause to be grateful—what’s best for us personally is also best for other forms of life, and for the life support systems on which we all depend.”

John Robbins book Diet for a New America

Source: Diet for a New America (1987), Ch. 12: All Things Are Connected

Life , Children , Health , Food

“I think it’s more difficult to be vegan than gay. I think people have a harder time accepting it; people feel more uncomfortable with a vegan at their dinner table than they do a lesbian. It’s confronting. It’s kind of suggesting that what someone else is doing is bad or wrong, and it hits them on a more personal level. … If somebody is setting there eating a steak watching you eat polenta, they’re thinking that you’re trying to preach to them or you’re trying to convert them in some way. Whereas with being gay, I don’t think anyone’s concerned that that’s the agenda. “Hey, Mom, you also have to be gay. I’m gay and so should you be!””

Portia de Rossi (1973) Australian-American actress

Certainly when I told her that I was vegan, it forced her to look at her habits.
Interview for VegNews magazine, July/August 2011 issue. Quoted in VegetarianStar.com http://vegetarianstar.com/2011/07/07/portia-de-rossi-on-vegnews-julyaugust-2011-issue/.

People , Way , Feeling , Moms

“He's tougher than a two-dollar steak!”

Jim Ross (1952) American professional wrestling commentator, professional wrestling referee, and restaurateur

Commentary Quotes

“Science Digest asked me to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind and write an article for them on the science it contained. I saw the picture and was appalled. I remained appalled even after a doctor’s examination had assured me that no internal organs had been shaken loose by its ridiculous soundwaves. (If you can’t be good, be loud, some say, and Close Encounters was very loud.) … Hollywood must deal with large audiences, most of whom are utterly unfamiliar with good science fiction. It has to bend to them, meet them at least half-way. Fully appreciating that, I could enjoy Planet of the Apes and Star Wars. Star Wars was entertainment for the masses and did not try to be anything more. Leave your sophistication at the door, get into the spirit, and you can have a fun ride. … Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions, or reading a bad book for the dirty parts. Optical wizardry is something a movie can do that a book can’t but it is no substitute for a story, for logic, for meaning. It is ornamentation, not substance. In fact, whenever a science fiction picture is praised overeffusively for its special effects, I know it’s a bad picture. Is that all they can find to talk about?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Editorial: The Reluctant Critic", in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 6, (12 November 1978) https://archive.org/stream/Asimovs_v02n06_1978-11-12/
General sources

War , Books , Way , Star

“Trump Steaks are the world's greatest steaks, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Treat yourself to the very, very best life has to offer you. And as a gift, Trump Steaks are the best you can give. One bite, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, and believe me. I understand steaks, it's my favorite food.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Source: 2000s, Lines marking the introduction of Trump Steaks by The Sharper Image (2007)

Life , World , Food , Understanding

“Jackie, what is the matter with you? You did not lose this ball game. We all lost it. No one man loses any ball game. You remember that. You are a good ball player. We need you to play shortstop. Come now, get dressed, let's go out and have a steak.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

English translation of pep talk given on August 21, 1971, after Hernandez' 6th-inning miscue—scored as a hit—had contributed significantly to Cincinnati's 6-3 come-from-behind victory over Pittsburgh http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1971/B08210CIN1971.htm, as quoted in "Playing Games: Bad Day in Cincy" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iG8mAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Bm0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5765%2C1664013&dq=clemente-began-talk-spanish by Charley Feeney, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Tuesday, September 28, 1971), p. 23
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Game

“On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit […] Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong.”

Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980) American critic and writer

"The One and the Many", Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 229 pages
Essay also appeared in Perspectives USA, Spring 1954 http://books.google.com/books?id=2UMIAQAAMAAJ&q=%22We+might+define+an+eccentric+as+a+man+who+is+a+law+unto+himself+and+a+crank+as+one+who+having+determined+what+the+law+is+insists+on+laying+it+down+to+others%22&pg=PA30#v=onepage
Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954)

Law

“When we arrived at New York I went, straight after clearing customs, to the Algonquin Hotel. I would not claim as of right a room in my own flat, since Hortense must now regard it as hers. After a couple of whisky sours in the Blue Bar I walked up Fifth Avenue. The September heat was intense and the air was all woollen shirts aboil. The town was full of jumbo steaks and ice cream, the shops pleaded that we buy useless gadgets. This was not Europe. This was very far from being Europe. Victory in Europe and Asia confirmed the excellence of the American way of life. Strong appetite and inviolable health. The afternoon sun was higher here than in any town of Europe, forced upwards by the skyscrapers. The place was rife with life.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Life , Health , Way , Strong

“The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

On censorship, in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), p. 188; this may be the origin of a remark which in recent years has sometimes become misattributed to Mark Twain: Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
Context: How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show — it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

Men , Baby

“It is my job, as a writer, to give the world toffee and peanut brittle and tough steak and celery.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(23 June 2003)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2003
Context: The world wants oatmeal. It is not my job to give the world oatmeal. It is my job not to be a hack. It is my job to try to make the world chew, lest its lazy jaw muscles atrophy and its collective mandible withers and all its teeth fall out. It is my job, as a writer, to give the world toffee and peanut brittle and tough steak and celery. I write peanut butter sandwiches, not oatmeal. And every time some dolt whines, "I'm confused" or "I don't understand" or "This doesn't make any sense," I should smile and know that I'm doing my job. Not because it is my job to be opaque, but because it is not my job to be transparent.

World

“There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak.”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

Veganism: The Fundamental Principle of the Abolitionist Movement, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/veganism-the-fundamental-principle-of-the-abolitionist-movement/
Context: There is no meaningful distinction between eating flesh and eating dairy or other animal products. Animals exploited in the dairy industry live longer than those used for meat, but they are treated worse during their lives, and they end up in the same slaughterhouse after which we consume their flesh anyway. There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak.

Suffering

“Did you have one of those days today, like a nail in the foot? Did the pterodactyl corpse dropped by the ghost of your mother from the spectral Hindenburg forever circling the Earth come smashing through the lid of your glass coffin? Did the New York strip steak you attacked at dinner suddenly show a mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth, and did it snap off the end of your fork, the last solid-gold fork from the set Anastasia pressed into your hands as they took her away to be shot? Is the slab under your apartment building moaning that it cannot stand the weight on its back a moment longer, and is the building stretching and creaking? Did a good friend betray you today, or did that good friend merely keep silent and fail to come to your aid? Are you holding the razor at your throat this very instant? Take heart, comfort is at hand. This is the hour that stretches. Djam karet.”

Harlan Ellison book Eidolons

We are the cavalry. We're here. Put away the pills. We'll get you through this bloody night. Next time, it'll be your turn to help us.
"Eidolons" (1988)

Heart

“Even vegetarians always cause more damage to plants. The same as steak lovers do to animals.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Animals , Lovers

“When steak lovers advise you to reincarnate as an animal. You know you are dead before you even begin to live. Reincarnation is a universal joke.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Dead , Universe , Animals , Lovers