Quotes from Anthony Bourdain

Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap, try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. See? It's easy.

John F. Kennedy said something truly terrifying—guaranteed to make every parent's blood run cold: "To have a child is to give fate a hostage.

Glasgow is maybe the most bullshit-free place on earth. I think I call it the antidote to the rest of the world. It's so unapologetically working class and attitude-free. Everyone's looking to take the piss out of you, as they put it. They're all comedians, and tough. They don't put on airs.

The whole concept of 'the perfect meal' is ludicrous. I knew already that the best meal in the world, the perfect meal, is very rarely the most sophisticated or expensive one....Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life.

Selling out is getting a job.

As well, there's the age-old syndrome common to fans of musicians with passionate and discerning cult followings. When the objects of adulation are crass enough to become popular, they quickly become a case of "used to be good.

What did you do before there were drugs? Before there were antibiotics?  . . . You learned to sit on the bedside and hold the hand  . . . every once in a while you gave the person a hug.

What are our expectations? Which of the things we desire are within reach? If not now, when? and will there be some left for me?

Food, it appeared, could be important. It could be an event. It had secrets.

A loud, egotistical, one-note asshole who's been cruising on the reputation of one obnoxious, over-testosteroned book for way too long and who should just shut the fuck up.

I remember it well, because it was such a slap in the face. It was a wake-up call that food could be important, a challenge to my natural belligerence. By being denied, a door opened.

Toast your goddamn muffins.

My last semester at Vassar, I'd taken to wearing nunchakus in a strap-on holster and carrying around a samurai sword — that should tell you all you need to know.

Taking pleasure in food has always been associated with sin. Food and sex have been closely aligned in the Judeo-Christian ethic going right back to the very beginning and the apple. If you don't like sex, if you don't like music or movies, chances are you're not eating well, either.

The life of the cook was a life of adventure, looting, pillaging and rock-and-rolling through life with a carefree disregard for all conventional morality. It looked pretty damn good to me on the other side of the line.

Line cooking done well is a beautiful thing to watch. It's a high-speed collaboration resembling, at its best, ballet or modern dance.

So I didn't have time to craft artful lies and evasions even if I'd wanted to.

As an art form, cooktalk is, like haiku or kabuki, defined by established rules, with a rigid, traditional framework in which one may operate.

I can't imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department than bargain sushi.

There is nothing cool about "used to be cool.

One finds oneself being defined by one's job. The job expiates us from sin; it excuses us our excesses and our lapses. That we are tired, or ill, or in extremis and yet persevere is all we have, sometimes, to sustain our image of ourselves.

But it's Atlanta that can lay claim to the best of the best (which is to say worst) chef-friendly dives in America: the legendary Clermont Lounge, a sort of lost-luggage department for strippers, who perform—perfunctorily—on a stage behind the bar.

We knew well how much these people were paying for cocaine - and that the more coke cost, the more people wanted it. We applied the same market plan to our budding catering operation, along with a similar pricing structure, and business was suddenly very, very, good.

Looking at these photographs, I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I've been. I've learned for sure only what I don't know - and how much I have to learn.