There are people whose faces assume an unaccustomed beauty and majesty the moment they cease to look out of their eyes.

The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection.

Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far.

But when one believes in the reality of things, making them visible by artificial means is not quite the same as feeling that they are close at hand.

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.

...a writer's works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his soul.

People don't know when they are happy. They're never so unhappy as they think they are.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.

The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains.

The bonds that unite another person to our self exist only in our mind.

With women who do not love us, as with the "dear departed," the knowledge that there is no hope left does not prevent us from continuing to wait.

Our shadows, now parallel, now close together and joined, traced an exquisite pattern at our feet.

It is always during a passing state of mind that we make lasting resolutions.

In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.

Fall in love with a dog's bum, And thou'll think it pretty as a plum.

One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.

Love is a reciprocal torture.

Not caring for their lives' is it? Why, what in the world is there that we should care for if it's not our lives, the only gift the Lord never offers us a second time.

Once we have reached a certain degree of enfeeblement, whether caused by age or by ill health, all pleasure taken at the expense of sleep, every disturbance of routine, becomes a nuisance.

There are mountainous, arduous days, up which one takes an infinite time to climb, and downward-sloping days which one can descend at full tilt, singing as one goes.

On no days of our childhood did we live so fully perhaps as those we thought we had left behind without living them, those that we spent with a favourite book.

Most of the supposed expressions of our feelings merely relieve us of them by drawing them out of us in an indistinct form that does not teach us to know them.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls bloom.

The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors.

The remembrence of things past is not nessecarly the remeberance of things as they were

A work in which there are theories is like an object which still has its price-tag on.

Hoeveel bedroevender nog dan vroeger vond ik het sedert die dag (...) dat ik geen aanleg voor schrijven had en ervan moest afzien ooit een beroemde schrijver te worden.

A woman whom we need and who makes us suffer elicits from us a whole gamut of feelings far more profound and vital than a man of genius who interests us.

I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinancy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky.

Parties of this sort are as a rule premature. They have little reality until the following day, when they occupy the attention of the people who were not invited.

The highest praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator.

Every person is destroyed when we cease to see him; after which his next appearance is a new creation, different from that which immediately preceded it, if not from them all.

My dear Madame, I just noticed that I forgot my cane at your house yesterday; please be good enough to give it to the bearer of this letter. P.S. Kindly pardon me for disturbing you; I just found my cane.

Hard work IS its own reward. Integrity IS priceless. Art DOES feed the soul.

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.

I'm a big believer in the negligee, that nearly invisible screen standing between you and the object of your desire.

Taking dishes straight off the restaurant's menu and putting them into a cookbook doesn't work, because as a chef you have your own vision of what your food is, but you can't always explain it. Or you can't pick recipes that best illustrate who and where you are and what you're doing. And if the recipes don't work, you don't have a book.

Simple ingredients can be used to make elegant dishes with just a little extra attention to detail.

For many sports fans, the onset of fall only means one thing: It's football season!

I love using rice as a flour; I'll grind roasted rice and dip fish in that. It gives a beautiful, crunchy texture.

Packing lunches and going over menus is a great way to make small changes in the way your kids eat.

Just us two men," my father said, my father who had so longed for a son that he had flown paper planes--adoption forms in triplicate--all the way to Africa to make his dream come true.

I'm OK with firing people when they fuck up, but canning them when they've done nothing wrong - that's painful. [on the layoffs needed after 9/11 hit the business]

Sweden was once a very homogenous society, but no more. For decades, people have been coming into Sweden from all over the world, and that's changed the way we cook.

My father was a big influence - it was very important to him that we traveled, and he gave me my strong work ethic.

I am many different things, and that is why I am so proud to be American.

Every day, whether I am teaching or entertaining - I absolutely love bringing different people and cultures together.

I feel fortunate to be part of the cooking community. We learn from each other.

Getting to a place of comfort can be uncomfortable.