Quotes from Anthony Bourdain

Just believe me when I tell you that the city is beautiful – and not in the oppressive way of, say, Florence, where you're almost afraid to leave your room because you might break something.

I like cooking pasta. Maybe it's that I always wanted to be Italian American in some dark part of my soul; maybe I get off on that final squirt of emulsifying extra virgin, just after the basil goes in, I don't know.

If you need instruction on how to handle a knife without lopping off a finger, I recommend Jacques Pepin's La Technique.

Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard have given us a deep and important look at the people, places and cuisine that are reshaping what we want for dinner. Koreatown thrills with flavors that will change your life.

Character you either have or don't have. Bigfoot understood that there are two types of people in the world: those who do what they say they're going to do — and everyone else.

There is an undercurrent of almost hysterical glee in his descriptions of Mary as a menacing and infectious brute – as if by calling her dangerous and unstable he was mitigating his own failure and fears.

Shortcut.' The word filled me with dread. When has a shortcut ever worked out as planned? The word – in a horror film at least – usually precedes disembowelment and death. A 'shortcut' almost never leads to good times.

Fine-looking women, smoking and drinking and gambling and doing whatever they like? Sounds good!

It's why Ronald McDonald is said to be more recognizable to children everywhere than Mickey Mouse or Jesus. Personally, I don't care if my little girl ever recognizes those two other guys—but I do care about her relationship with Ronald. I want her to see American fast-food culture as I do. As the enemy.

Hot, salty, crunchy, and portable, the previously awful-sounding collection of greasy delights can become a Garden of Eden of heart-clogging goodness when you're in a drunken stupor, hungering for fried snacks. At that precise moment, nothing could taste better.

This sounds like positive social change, right? Anything the revs are against is surely a good thing. Fine-looking women, smoking and drinking and gambling and doing whatever they like? Sounds good!

The American woman's interest does not lie in the man; she wants to be alone, and she can't be alone without dabbling, today in chemistry, to-morrow in physiology and the day after in Buddhism.

Spanish is the language of the early morning in Manhattan. Frightened people become angry people - as history teaches us again and again. The best of traveling companions: relentlessly curious, tireless and totally without fear.

I make two cook like you in the toilette each morning! You are deezgusting!

They'd been running households for years, of course – seeing to the finances, cooking, cleaning, weaving, and in general, doing all those things which men couldn't, or more accurately, wouldn't, do.

How do you instruct a woman who's already survived incredible hardship, who's worked hard all her life, on how to live 'properly', when your life is, by contrast, a carefree wonderland of excess, sloth and caprice?

But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it. It's all here: the good, the bad and the ugly.

But that cold soup stayed with me. It resonated, waking me up, making me aware of my tongue, and in some way, preparing me for future events.

The new trash who'd suddenly come into money and liked to rub your nose into it? They didn't care. They didn't notice. Until one of their own goes ill. Then it's a sodding emergency. Some privileged prat starts feeling poorly and then it's call out the Marines, start looking for someone to blame

You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

When I was in Bulgarian paratroopers – we like this plane very much,' he said. 'Of course, we were all wearing parachutes.

Perhaps eager to put the boot in again, she agrees enthusiastically that Spain is indeed the New France but shrinks from the tiny bite, pinchos/tapas thing: I still have an attention span. I can eat a meal.

He was a crusty old bastard, dressed like my uncle in ancient denim coveralls, espadrilles and beret. He had a leathery, tanned and windblown face, hollow cheeks, and the tiny broken blood vessels on nose and cheeks that everyone seemed to have from drinking so much of the local Bordeaux.

It's not like the idea of washing your hands after visiting the bathroom was some goofy new theory.