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

"He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato."
— Terry Pratchett (The Fifth Elephant)

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit."
— Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential)

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers."
— Laurie Colwin

"'If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.'"
— John Irving (The World According to Garp)

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I'll accomodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine."
— Anthony Bourdain

"Calvin:Why are you crying mom?
Mom: I'm cutting up an onion.
Calvin: It must be hard to cook if you anthrpomorphisize your vegetables."
— Bill Watterson (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes)

"Anyone who thinks they're too grown up or too sophisticated to eat caramel corn, is not invited to my house for dinner"
— Ruth Reichl

"Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need."
— Julia Child

"If I had thought the beef marrow might be a hell of a lot of work for not much difference, I needn’t have worried. The taste of the marrow is rich, meaty, intense in a nearly-too-much way. In my increasingly depraved state, I could think of nothing at first but that it tasted like really good sex. But there was something more than that, even. What it really tastes like is life, well lived. Of course the cow I got marrow from had a fairly crappy life – lots of crowds and overmedication and bland food that might or might not have been a relative. But deep in his or her bones, there was a capacity for feral joy. I could taste it."
— Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously)

"I am more modest now, but I still think that one of the pleasantest of all emotions is to know that I, I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few, that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish, to sustain them truly against the hungers of the world."
— M.F.K. Fisher

"Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything."
— Julia Child

""There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup.""
— Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread)

"Without the Project I was nothing but a secretary on a road to nowhere, drifting toward frosted hair and menthol addiction."
— Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)

"Good kitchens are not about size; they are about ergonomics and light."
— Nigel Slater (The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater)

"Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way"
— Paul Theroux (Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents)

"Taking solitude in stride was a sign of strength and of a willingness to take care of myself. This meant - among other things - working productively, remembering to leave the house, and eating well. I thought about food all the time. I had a subscription to Gourmet and Food & Wine. Cooking for others had often been my way of offering care. So why, when I was alone, did I find myself trying to subsist on cereal and water? I'd need to learn to cook for one."
— Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant : Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)

"Because cooks love the social aspect of food, cooking for one is intrinsically interesting. A good meal is like a present, and it can feel goofy, at best, to give yourself a present. On the other hand, there is something life affirming in taking the trouble to feed yourself well, or even decently. Cooking for yourself allows you to be strange or decadent or both. The chances of liking what you make are high, but if it winds up being disgusting, you can always throw it away and order a pizza; no one else will know. In the end, the experimentation, the impulsiveness, and the invention that such conditions allow for will probably make you a better cook."
— Jenni Ferrari-Adler (Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant : Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone)

"Assuming mother's absence is only for a short time, don't be too concerned if you find yourself being more relaxed than she is over what the children eat. It is far better to maintain harmony and let mother cope with the problem later. You can use the excuse "You are only having this because Mummy's in hospital!"."
— Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia (NMAA Cooks)

"When I got home I peered down at the lobster to see how he was doing. The inner plastic bag was sucked tight around him and clouded up. It looked like something out of an eighties made-for-TV movie, with some washed-up actress taking too many pills and trying to off herself with a Macy's bag."
— Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)

""It ain't burnt, Rosemary, it's blackened.""
— Bunny Mathews

"There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman cooking dinner for someone she loves."
— Thomas Wolfe

"When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up. "
— Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot)

"I understood that if ever one wanted to live with someone you cooked for them and they came running. But then it is my idea of hell these days, living with someone. The idea of sharing your life with someone is just utterly ghastly. I know why people do it, but it's never a good idea."
— Nigel Slater (Real Cooking)

"Save the Planet...Buy Organic"
— Rev. Dr. Nancy Philips

""I am more of an herb guy than a spice guy. It comes back to a certain conservatism I have regarding food. The French are not big on spices; they use more herbs. I know the spices used in European cooking and use them in moderation. I am not going to serve a dish that is wildly nutmegged!" David Waltuck, Chanterelle NYC"
— Karen Page

"in the abstract art of cooking,
ingredients trump appliances,
passion supersedes expertise,
creativity triumphs over technique,
spontaneity inspires invention,
and wine makes even the worst culinary disaster taste delicious."
— Bob Blumer

"Cooking great Thai dishes for your family and friends back home is a gourmet souvenir from Thailand that will leave a lasting impression on all."
— COOKING LIGHT MAGAZINE (The Best of Cooking Light 5, Special Edition 124 of the Year's Greatest Recipes for All Cooks, for All Occasions)

"Everything tastes better when cooked by someone else."
— Marillyn Taylor Klam

"The sergeants are shunted forward and they blink and stare up at Gonzo as he leans on the edge of his giant mixing bowl. MacArthur never addressed his troops from a mixing bowl--not even one made from a spare geodesic radio emplacement shell--and certainly de Gaulle never did. But Gonzo Lubitsch does, and he does it as if a whole long line of commanders were standing at his shoulder, urging him on.

"Gentlemen," says Gonzo softly, "holidays are over. I need an oven, and I need one in about twenty minutes, or these fine flapjacks will go to waste, and that is not happening."

And something about this statement and the voice in which he says it makes it clear that this is simply true. One way or another, this thing will get done. Under a layer of grime and horror, these two are soldiers, and more, they are productive, can-do sorts of people. Rustily but with a gratitude which is not so far short of worship, they say "Yes, sir" and are about their business."
— Nick Harkaway (The Gone-Away World)