Listed below are food quotes I’ve collected over the years, they are listed alphabetically by the last name of the person who said the quote. Some quotes are about a specific ingredient or dish, some are about the art of cooking and some are just about eating. Because eating is the best part of cooking!

One man’s poison ivy is another man’s spinach. – George Ade, American Playwright

To always have a perfect cake without worry and effort is every woman’s ambition. –All About Home Baking (1940)

The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt. – Dave Barry, American Author

When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top, your soul is in that food, and there’s something about that that can never be made by a company that has three million employees. – Mario Batali, American Chef

There is no such thing as a little garlic. – Arthur Baer, American journalist and humorist

You don’t mince words. Just garlic. – Joan Bauer, American writer

I’m going to break one of the rules of the trade here. I’m going to tell you some of the secrets of improvisation. Just remember—it’s always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you’re on your own.  –  James Beard

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts. – James Beard

Food is our common ground, a universal experience. – James Beard

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen. – James Beard

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup. – Ludwig van Beethoven

Make pumpkin bread as the default gift for everyone. It is cheap, it is beloved, and it is carbs. – Karen Bender, American Novelist

Sticky cinnamon buns belong to Philadelphia as do Independence Hall and the Twelfth Street Market. This is a bun of true cinnamon flavor, of a stickiness incarnate. – Best Recipes of 1949 (This Week Magazine)

I like French Fries; I like mashed. I love potatoes. – Mary J. Blige, American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress

Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially–romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory. – Chris Bohjalian, Secrets of Eden

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage. – Erma Bombeck, Journalist

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart. – Erma Bombeck, Journalist

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one. – Erma Bombeck, Journalist

Like religion, politics and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial. – Erma Bombeck, Journalist

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food. – Anthony Bourdain

Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals like chocolate. – Sandra Boyton, American humorist

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star. – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Philosophy of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good. – Alice May Brock, American artist, author and former restaurateur

Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did. – Dr. William Butler, 17th century English writer (regarding strawberries)

I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm. – Robert Farrar Capon, American Episcopal priest, author of The Supper of the Lamb and chef

If drumsticks are for playing drums, you would think that breadsticks would be for playing bread, wouldn’t you? “Would you like some breadsticks?” “No, thank you, I don’t play bread. I play drums. Perhaps I’ll have a drum roll.” – George Carlin, Comedian

If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart. – Cesar Chavez, American labor leader and civil rights activist

Life is too short to eat food that doesn’t taste good. – Alana Chernila, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You can stop buying and start making

A party without a cake is just a meeting. – Julia Child

If you’re afraid of butter, use cream. – Julia Child

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude. – Julia Child

You learn to cook so that you don’t have to be a slave to recipes. You get what’s in season and you know what to do with it. – Julia Child

But my favorite remained the basic roast chicken. What a deceptively simple dish. I had come to believe that one can judge the quality of a cook by his or her roast chicken. Above all, it should taste like chicken: it should be so good that even a perfectly simple, buttery roast should be a delight. – Julia Child, My Life in France

The art of bread making can become a consuming hobby, and no matter how often and how many kinds of bread one has made, there always seems to be something new to learn. – Julia Child

How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex? – Julia Child

You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients. – Julia Child

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked. – Winston S. Churchill

Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love. – Craig Claiborne, American restaurant critic and food editor for The New York Times

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers. – Laurie Colwin, American Writer, Food Columnist in Gourmet

My most memorable meal is every Thanksgiving. I love the food: the turkey and stuffing; the sweet potatoes and rice, which come from my mother’s Southern heritage; the mashed potatoes, which come from my wife’s Midwestern roots; the Campbell’s green bean casserole; and of course the pumpkin pie. – Douglas Conant, American Businessman

Happy is the home with a fat cookie jar stuffed full of goodies. – Cookies Cookies (1959)

I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I just hate it. – Clarence Darrow, Lawyer

Any man gets tired of toast all the time. – Davis Master Pattern Baking Formulas (1938)

I like rice. Rice is great if you’re hungry and want 2000 of something. – Mich Ehrenborg, Comedian

I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them. – Nora Ephron, Screenwriter, Journalist, Playwright, Producer

Cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality. – Clifton Fadiman, American Writer

There is no one of-woman-born who does not like Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuits. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar and a socialist. – Tina Fey, Bossypants

First we eat, then we do everything else. – M.F.K. Fisher, American Food Writer of several books including The Art of Eating

It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without soup or bread in it. – M.F.K. Fisher, American food writer

A writing cook and a cooking writer must be bold at the desk as well as the stove. – M.F.K. Fisher, American food writer

Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved. – Bobby Flay

There is poetry in a pork chop to a hungry man. – Philip Gibbs, English Journalist

Hard work should be rewarded by good food. – Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth

The milk of kindness flows through my body; I shall follow Jesus to the Taco Bell and give thanks. – Aretha Franklin, Singer & Songwriter

Grilled cheese and tomato soup are the ultimate comfort meal. – Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa

Cooking is one of great gifts you can give to those you love. – Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa

Corn provided infant America with a backbone while it was developing the use of its legs. America was growing, quite literally, up the cornstalk. – Dorothy Giles author of Singing Valleys: The Story of Corn

It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. – Lewis Grizzard, American writer and humorist

Fresh herbs really belong anywhere you put them. – Alex Guarnaschelli, American Chef

A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap. – Mitch Hedberg, Comedian

Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me. – Audrey Hepburn, Actress

Food is your body’s fuel. Without fuel, your body wants to shut down. – Ken Hill, British Playwright

Nearly everyone wants as least one outstanding meal a day. – Duncan Hines, writer, Adventures in Good Eating

I’m not a strong cook. I can do the crockpot; that’s about it. – Bryce Dallas Howard, Actress

Since the nineteen-fifties, rural Florida has marketed itself to Northerners and Midwesterners as an unexplored paradise of citrus and mermaids. – Anne Hull, Journalist

I don’t want to die tomorrow knowing that I could have had a piece of cake today. – Gabriel Iglesias, Comedian

Every meal should end with something sweet. Maybe it’s jelly on toast at breakfast, or a small piece of chocolate at dinner – but it always helps my brain bring a close to the meal. – Robert Irvine, Chef

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. – Barbara Johnson, Author

Some people feed you with love. – Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

If you have food in your jaws you have solved all questions for the time being. – Franz Kafka, “Investigations of a Dog”

Garlic bread, it’s the future, I’ve tasted it. – Peter Kay, Comedian

When we eat together, when we set out to do so deliberately, life is better, no matter what your circumstances. – Thomas Keller, author Ad Hoc at Home

Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor. – Marge Kennedy

I ate a pound cake today, but I gained two. – Jarod Kintz, Author

Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter. – Fran Lebowitz, American Author

People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this. – Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food. They are very bite-sized and personal. – Sandra Lee, Food Network Chef

Instead of doing cinnamon, nutmeg and all those baking spices I’ll have one spice that’s for sweets, and that’s pumpkin pie spice. – Sandra Lee, Food Network Chef

There is more food in a pennyworth of bread than in a gallon of ale. – Joseph Livesey, A Lecture on Malt Liquor

Everything you see I owe to spaghetti. – Sophie Loren, Actress

Sandwiches are wonderful. You don’t need a spoon or a plate! – Paul Lynde, Comedian

The more colorful the food the better. I try to add color to my diet, which means vegetables and fruits. – Misty May-Treanor, American beach volleyball player

As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets, I’ll take roast chicken and dumplings. – Hattie McDaniel, Actress

Food shouldn’t be half-bad. It should be all good. – Katie McGarry, Dare You To

What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. – A.A. Milne, author Winnie-the-Pooh books

Food feeds both the body and soul – there are clear reasons to eat a balanced diet, but there are also reasons you cling to your mom’s secret chicken noodle soup recipe when you’re sick. – Michael Mina, American Chef

My family lived off the land and summer evening meals featured baked stuffed tomatoes, potato salad, corn on the cob, fresh shelled peas and homemade ice cream with strawberries from our garden. With no air conditioning in those days, the cool porch was the center of our universe after the scorching days. – David Mixner, Activist

The idea is to make the ingredients sing, not a grand opera, but a jolly chanson. – Marie-Pierre Moine, former editor ofTaste Magazine and resident food columnist in House and Garden

I live on good soup, not fine words. – Moliere, French Playwright

If you were food, you would be corn. I don’t know why, I just sense corn in you. – Lizbeth Mori, Author

No man is lonely while eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention. – Christopher Morley, American Journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Ode to a Bundt Cake: You’re so Round. Your taste profound. Yet sadly. Sadly. You never stick a ‘round.’ – Nothing Bundt Cakes

Good asparagus needs minimal treatment and is best eaten with few other ingredients. – Yotam Ottolenghi, Chef, Restaurant owner and food writer

A positive attitude and a sense of humor go together like biscuits and gravy. – Dolly Parton, Singer

Some people just don’t have what it takes to appreciate a cookie. – James Patterson, The Angel Experiment

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. – Luciano Pavarotti, Italian operatic tenor

Dessert is to a meal what a dress is to a woman. – Béatrice Peltre, freelance food writer, author of La Tartine Gourmande blog

I’m not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else. – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay, messes are fine—the pleasure is in the creating and the sharing of the result. – Lori Pollan, The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals

I tried to bake a cake for my mother’s birthday – it took me four hours. It was terrible, and I cried for three days. – Rachael Ray

Dip a slice of bread in batter. That’s September: yellow, gold, soft and sticky. Fry the bread. Now you have October: chewier, drier, streaked with browns. The day in question fell somewhere in the middle of the French Toast process. – Tom Robbins, Novelist

“Eternity is a ham and two people” (also given as “Eternity is two people and a ham”) is an old quip from the days when a ham was huge-far more than two people could finish. – Irma Rombauer, The Joy of Cooking

I don’t like food that’s too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I’d buy a painting. – Andy Rooney, Journalist

Cakes are like books: There are new ones you want to read and old favorites you want to reread. – Ellen Rose, Author

All sorrows are less with bread. – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish Writer

Not only are pasta dishes delicious, but they are also great, easy options for a quick dinner during a busy weekday. – Marcus Samuelsson, chef and restaurateur

A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. – Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian Fashion Designer

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant? – Martin Scorsese, Director

Let the sky rain potatoes. – William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

There is no sincerer love than the love of food. – George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger! – Bart Simpson

How can people say they don’t eat eggplant when God loves the color and the French love the name? I don’t understand. – Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet

“It is well to remember that the stomach governs the world,” wrote Churchill when planning the feeding of his troops on the north-west Indian frontier at the tail-end of the nineteenth century. – Cita Stelzer, Dinner with Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table

We all eat, and it would be a sad waste of opportunity to eat badly. – Anna Thomas, film screenwriter, film producer and writer

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. – Calvin Trillin, American journalist, humorist, food writer

Every salad you serve is a picture you have painted, a sculpture you have modeled, a drama you have created. – Carol Truax, The Art of Salad Making

Chinese food in Texas is the best Chinese food in the United States except Boston. – John Updike, American novelist, literary critic

I like bread, and I like butter – but I like bread with butter best. – Sarah Weiner, Chef

The comeback of true green olives was part of a Spanish food revival in the early 2000s. I credit Sam and Sam Clark of Moro Restaurant in London with making them cool again. – Bee Wilson, British food writer, journalist and historian

I went to a restaurant that serves “breakfast at any time.” So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance. – Steven Wright, Comedian