If you are going to flip something, you must have the courage of your convictions.

Some children like to make castles out of their rice pudding, or faces with raisins for eyes. It is forbidden -- so sternly that, when they grow up, they take a horrid revenge by dying meringues pale blue or baking birthday cakes in the form of horseshoes or lyres or whatnot.

I was kind of an innocent hayseed from a middle-class, utterly nonintellectual background.

A party without cake is really just a meeting.

I found that the recipes in most - in all - the books I had were really not adequate. They didn't tell you enough... I won't do anything unless I'm told why I'm doing it. So I felt that we needed fuller explanations so that if you followed one of those recipes, it should turn out exactly right.

But I was a pure romantic, and only operating with half my burners turned on.

I wouldn't keep him around long if I didn't feed him well.