Quotes from Anthony Bourdain

I've been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do 'A Cook's Tour;' I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn't already.

As I see it, fast food outfits have targeted small children with their advertising in a very effective way. You know, it's clowns and kid's toys and bright colors and things like that.

As you move through this life...you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you.

I urge you to travel - as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to.

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

Turning your nose up at a genuine and sincere gesture of hospitality is no way to travel or to make friends around the world.

If I were trapped in one city and had to eat one nation's cuisine for the rest of my life, I would not mind eating Japanese. I adore Japanese food. I love it.

I'd love to play bass with Parliament Funkadelic, but I can't play bass, so I don't think that's going to happen.

I often look ridiculous in Japan. There's really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.

'Kitchen Confidential' wasn't a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.

I think it's a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things.

Nobody in Singapore drinks Singapore Slings. It's one of the first things you find out there. What you do in Singapore is eat. It's a really food-crazy culture, where all of this great food is available in a kind of hawker-stand environment.

I try to very hard to avoid a situation where I would be eating cat or dog; I've managed to gracefully avoid that. It's hypocritical of me and an arbitrary line, but one that I have managed to avoid crossing.

I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don't want my chefs to be cute and adorable.

When I'm back in New York - and this is a terrible thing to complain about - I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I'd like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It's kind of like being in the Mafia.

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

I'm a control freak. If you're going to slap my name on something, I would like to control it.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

I'm really good at sleeping on planes. I mean, I smell jet fuel and I'm out; I'm asleep for takeoff.

I love New York. I'm a guy for whom a New York accent is a comforting thing.

I love bacon, but I don't think we need it on everything.

My love of soft, runny cheese - it's impossible to resist.

A good, stinky French cheese or a good Stilton. These are things I really, really love. Dessert I can obviously live without.

I am a delightfully evangelical guy about things I love. I am that annoying guy who sits everyone down and forces them to read some book I like. I'm looking across the full spectrum of genres.