It was there [Dijon], I now understand, that I started to grow up, to study, to make love, to eat and drink, to be me and not what I was expected to be. It was there that I learned it is blessed to receive, as well as that every human being, no matter how base, is worthy of my respect and even my envy because he knows something that I may never be old or wise or kind or tender enough to know.

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.

A complete lack of caution is perhaps one of the true signs of a real gourmet.

It is hard and perhaps impossible for many people to recognize the difference between innocence and naiveté.

I cannot count the good people I know who to my mind would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers.

Talleyrand said that two things are essential in life: to give good dinners and to keep on fair terms with women. As the years pass and fires cool, it can become unimportant to stay always on fair terms either with women or one's fellows, but a wide and sensitive appreciation of fine flavours can still abide with us, to warm our hearts.

Cheese has always been a food that both sophisticated and simple humans love.