Italy is good in the sense that when you bring a child to a restaurant in Italy, they're happy to see it. The waiters will say "complimenti" and welcome you and dote after the kid. They don't treat you like you just brought in this horrible probably soon-to-be-squealing creature who's going to be difficult.

I admire people who do things that are interesting to them, who don't have a strategy or a master plan or have a brand - I don't care about any of those things.

The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about - or as a ritual like filling up a car - but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon.

I'm really good at sleeping on planes. I mean, I smell jet fuel and I'm out; I'm asleep for takeoff.

I try to very hard to avoid a situation where I would be eating cat or dog; I've managed to gracefully avoid that. It's hypocritical of me and an arbitrary line, but one that I have managed to avoid crossing.

One of life's terrible truths is that women like guys who seem to know what they're doing.

Naturally, I'm misanthropic. But the Negronis are helping considerably.