Julia Child Quotes

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

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.

A cookbook is only as good as its poorest recipe.

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

Any disaster is a learning process.

I’m awfully sorry for people who are taken in by all of today’s dietary mumbo jumbo. They are not getting any enjoyment out of their food.

Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

Eating is the secret to good cooking.

You have to do it and do it, until you get it right.

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

Romance is the icing but love is the cake.

When the war broke out I decided I would be very patriotic. Standing my full height. I presented myself to the Wacs and the to the Waves. And I was rejected - I was an inch too tall.

Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?

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.

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

We ought to enjoy our food, we ought to take time and care and prepare it correctly, and we ought to have fun doing it and make it a communal event.

She was my first cat ever, and I thought she was marvelous.

There are reasons, and then there are excuses.

I believe in red meat. I often said: red meat and gin.

I was going to be a great woman novelist. Then the war came along and I think it's hard for young people today, don't you, to realize that when World War II happened we were dying to go and help our country.

I was a romantic, messy thinker. I was raised with very conservative beliefs, but that was a long time ago.

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

The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.

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

I love good, fresh food cooked by someone who knows what he's doing.

No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize.

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.

I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation, but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.

You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.

I think careful cooking is love, don't you?

There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.

Remember, you are all alone in the kitchen and no one can see you.

I'm very much for making everything safe. The more natural the means we use to raise our vegetables and get rid of bugs, the better.

...nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.

One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.

Cooking was taken with such seriousness in France that even ordinary chefs were proud of their profession. That's what appealed to me.

Learn how to cook! That's the way to save money. You don't save it buying hamburger helpers, and prepared foods; you save it by buying fresh foods in season or in large supply, when they are cheapest and usually best, and you prepare them from scratch at home. Why pay for someone else's work, when if you know how to do it, you can save all that money for yourself?

As we say in the American Institute of Wine and Food, small helpings, no seconds. A little bit of everything. No snacking. And have a good time.

The shellfish thing is very scary. You have to know the people you buy from and exactly where their wholesalers are getting the fish from.

Personally, I don't think pure vegetarianism is a healthy lifestyle. I've often wondered to myself: Does a vegetarian look forward to dinner, ever?

Because I've done a lot of television, I'm sort of a generalist. I'm not a pastry cook, but I've had to learn a certain amount about it. I'm not a baker, though I've had to learn how to do it. I'm sort of a general cook.

You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.

My father was in charge of managing the farm.

Cooking hasn't yet been accepted as the art form it is. It should be on the level with any of the other art forms.

A party without cake is really just a meeting.

Just how could a nation often be great if it's bread tastes want Kleenex.

Wine is a living liquid containing no preservatives. Its life cycle comprises youth, maturity, old age, and death. When not treated with reasonable respect it will sicken and die.

Cooking well doesn't mean cooking fancy.