My father would always tell me that creativity didn't matter at the diner. When I was probably 14 or 15, I would put - I mean, it was a no-nonsense place - but I would try to put a sprig of parsley or orange curl on the omelets, or something like that. He'd be like "Don't do that!"

It's not really the life of cooking that's hard - it's what you make of it and what level you push yourself to.

Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food.

Anything that could ever prevent me from achieving a goal, I put in a box, tape it up, throw it over my shoulder. You aim for a goal and attain it. Then you look to the next one.

People like to think the creative process is romantic. The artist drifts to sleep at night, to be awakened by the subliminal echoes of his or her next brilliant idea. The truth, for me at least, is that creativity is primarily the result of hard work and study.

I lived my whole life in the kitchen. Not only that, but it's the passion, it's the love for cooking and food. It's dictated my entire life — every aspect of it. So, in some ways, the thought of not being able to do that anymore radically affects your life.

We all eat two to six times a day. Why? Because we are supposed to, we are programmed to, we want to.