Quotes from Heston Blumenthal

No, when I worked as an accountant I was falling asleep waiting for 5 o'clock.

We sunk everything into it. It came close to going under several times.

Now my complaint is there are only 18 hours to work in a day.

I am not the world's most confident person.

I worked 120 hours a week for eight years. That's 20 to 22 hours a day every day and one week I only got 15 hours sleep.

I've got around 400 cookbooks.

To me, food is as much about the moment, the occasion, the location and the company as it is about the taste.

If it doesn't taste good it doesn't go on the menu.

What gets me excited is the original principle.

I would try doing a dish 30 different ways.

You know how sad your life is when you know the release date of DVDs.

I tend to take negative comments to heart.

Television forces people to be larger than life. I would be too shy.

Development is where my heart is focused because eating is the only thing that we do that involves all the senses. We eat with our eyes and our ears and our noses.

I haven't raised my voice for eight to 10 years in the kitchen. And I won't have anybody shouting. If I hear of anybody having a go at anyone else, they'll get disciplined.

As we get older, we tend to become more risk averse because we tend to find reasons why things won't work. When you are a kid, you think everything is possible, and I think with creativity it is so important to keep that naivety.

But most is all to do with work. There are aspects of work that are enjoyable, that you could call a hobby.

Being branded number one restaurant in the world is actually very humbling.

There are so many issues in our oceans - like the near extinction of blue fin tuna - that should be taken more seriously worldwide.

At home I've got 1,500 cook books and the spines have all gone, the pages are all torn - it's chaos.

It was quite a challenge to make people eat crab ice cream.

I was born in the '60s and grew up in the '70s - not exactly the best decade for food in British history. It was horrendous. It was a time when, as a nation, we excelled in art and music and acting and photography and fashion - all creative skills... all apart from cooking.

I write and chop with my left hand and do everything else, including eating with a knife, with my right.

I was determined that if I failed it wouldn't be due to lack of effort.