When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.

Any disaster is a learning process.

In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it.

...the waiters carried themselves with a quiet joy, as if their entire mission in life was to make their customers feel comfortable and well tended.

It's hard to imagine a civilization without onions; in one form or another their flavor blends into almost everything in the meal except the desert.