I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

...operational proof...it's all theory until you see for yourself whether or not something works.

Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. [...] [T]he dough takes care of itself. [...] While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place [...] then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough.

Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake.

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.

Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health.

In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I must say.