60 Inspiring Quotes About Food

Food has always been more than just sustenance; it's a universal language that bridges cultures, evokes emotions, and creates memories. Whether it's a decadent dessert that takes you back to your childhood or a hearty meal shared with loved ones, the joy of eating has inspired great minds for centuries. In this collection, we've gathered 60 inspiring quotes that capture the essence of food's impact on our lives. From celebrated chefs to literary giants, these voices remind us of the profound connection between what we eat and who we are. Dive in and savor the wisdom that celebrates the art of living through the love of food.

1. “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” - George Bernard Shaw

2. “Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.” - Jo Brand

3. “Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn.” - Garrison Keillor

4. “New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.” - Mark Twain

5. “Kissing don't last: cookery do !” - George Meredith

6. “The Cheesecake Factory is a great business model, but if you take your wife there for your 25th wedding anniversary, you might not reach your 26th.” - Scott Adams

7. “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” - Sophia Loren

8. “This story about good food begins in a quick-stop convenience market.” - Barbara Kingsolver

9. “On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in bowl.” - Jhumpa Lahiri

10. “Parsley is gharsley.” - Ogden Nash

11. “My own feeling is that if adultery is wickedness then so is food. Both make me feel so much better afterward.” - Kurt Vonnegut

12. “Some 1.2 billion people in the world still have too little to eat; the same number today suffer from being overweight…..For the first time in 100 years medical experts are predicting that life expectancy in developed countries will fall. Thanks to obesity our children face the prospect of dying younger than us.” - Felicity Lawrence

13. “...it was so rich and exotic I was seduced into taking one bite and then another as I tried to chase the flavors back to their source.” - Ruth Reichl

14. “...it was one of the best meals we ever ate.Perhaps that is because it was the first conscious one, for me at least; but the fact that we remember it with such queer clarity must mean that it had other reasons for being important. I suppose that happens at least once to every human. I hope so.Now the hills are cut through with superhighways, and I can't say whether we sat that night in Mint Canyon or Bouquet, and the three of us are in some ways even more than twenty-five years older than we were then. And still the warm round peach pie and the cool yellow cream we ate together that August night live in our hearts' palates, succulent, secret, delicious.” - M.F.K. Fisher

15. “I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.” - Oscar Wilde

16. “Parla come magni,' It means, 'Speak the way you eat,' or in my personal translation: 'Say it like you eat it.' It's a reminder - when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words - to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman rood. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

17. “Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.” - William Shakespeare

18. “we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse. (quoting Joel Salatin)” - Michael Pollan

19. “I suppose there are people who can pass up free guacamole, but they're either allergic to avocado or too joyless to live.” - Frank Bruni

20. “There are few chemicals that we as a people are exposed to that have as many far reaching physiological affects on living beings as Monosodium Glutamate does. MSG directly causes obesity, diabetes, triggers epilepsy, destroys eye tissues, is genotoxic in many organs and is the probable cause of ADHD and Autism. Considering that MSG’s only reported role in food is that of ‘flavour enhancer’ is that use worth the risk of the myriad of physical ailments associated with it? Does the public really want to be tricked into eating more food and faster by a food additive?” - John E. Erb

21. “Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well.” - James Joyce

22. “But carbon 13 [the carbon from corn] doesn't lie, and researchers who have compared the isotopes in the flesh or hair of Americans to those in the same tissues of Mexicans report that it is now we in the North who are the true people of corn.... Compared to us, Mexicans today consume a far more varied carbon diet: the animals they eat still eat grass (until recently, Mexicans regarded feeding corn to livestock as a sacrilege); much of their protein comes from legumes; and they still sweeten their beverages with cane sugar. So that's us: processed corn, walking.” - Michael Pollan

23. “I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

24. “I'd rather eat nothing than eat a carrot.” - Marian Keyes

25. “It seems like women are always in the kitchen around food and they're serving and they're giving and they're enjoying and it's part of the plentitude of life and the enrichment of life.” - Kathy Bates

26. “Fat gives things flavor.” - Julia Child

27. “To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon's time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe's menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures.” - Raymond Sokolov

28. “There are some who are still weak in faith, who ought to be instructed, and who would gladly believe as we do. But their ignorance prevents them...we must bear patiently with these people and not use our liberty; since it brings to peril or harm to body or soul...but if we use our liberty unnecessarily, and deliberately cause offense to our neighbor, we drive away the very one who in time would come to our faith. Thus St. Paul circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) because simple minded Jews had taken offense; he thought: what harm can it do, since they are offended because of ignorance? But when, in Antioch, they insisted that he out and must circumcise Titus (Gal. 2:3) Paul withstood them all and to spite them refused to have Titus circumcised... He did the same when St. Peter...it happened in this way: when Peter was with the Gentiles he ate pork and sausages with them, but when the Jews came in, he abstained from this food and did not eat as he did before. Then the Gentiles who had become Christians though: Alas! we, too, must be like the Jews, eat no pork, and live according to the law of Moses. But when Paul learned that they were acting to the injury of evangelical freedom, he reproved Peter publicly and read him an apostolic lecture, saying: "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?" (Gal. 2:14). Thus we, too, should order our lives and use our liberty at the proper time, so that Christian liberty may suffer no injury, and no offense be given to our weak brothers and sisters who are still without the knowledge of this liberty.” - Martin Luther

29. “The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. (pg. 326, The Pleasures of Eating)” - Wendell Berry

30. “Watching Italians eat (especially men, I have to say) is a form of tourism the books don't tell you about. They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sounds of acute appreciation. It's fairly sexy. Of course I don't know how these men behave at home, if they help with the cooking or are vain and boorish and mistreat their wives. I realized Mediterranean cultures have their issues. Fine, don't burst my bubble. I didn’t want to marry these guys, I just wanted to watch. (p. 247)” - Barbara Kingsolver

31. “Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.” - Andrew Solomon

32. “Suffering... is not just lots of pain but pain amplified by distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread.” - Michael Pollan

33. “your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” - Anthony Bourdain

34. “Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

35. “I would advocate that chocolate be covered by health insurance, but that is admittedly a very French public policy perspective.” - Mireille Guiliano

36. “Me and the folks who buy my food are like the Indians -- we just want to opt out. That's all the Indians ever wanted -- to keep their tepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches. They didn't care if there was a Washington, D.C., or a Custer or a USDA; just leave us alone. But the Western mind can't bear an opt-out option. We're going to have to refight the Battle of the Little Big Horn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate.” - Michael Pollan

37. “He looked at the piles of food again, and it was like he was seeing it with new eyes. "This is wrong", he thought, "Letting food rot while people die of hunger. It's evil."....He breathed in the too-sweet smell of rotting food, "I can stop this evil.” - Margaret Peterson Haddix

38. “There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.” - Kenneth Grahame

39. “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.” - Anthony Bourdain

40. “Jam on a winter took away the blue devils. It was like tasting summer. ” - Sandra Dallas

41. “It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

42. “That anyone should need to write a book advising people to "eat food" could be taken as a measure of our alienation and confusion. Or we can choose to see it in a more positive light and count ourselves fortunate indeed that there is once again real food for us to eat.” - Michael Pollan

43. “What do you think, Galen?" Lady Fern asked in a sugary voice.Galen chewed slowly and painfully, swallowing tentatively.It's very unique," he said, trying to look intrigued instead of disgusted. "It's excellent."Lady Fern looked satisfied and turned to say something to her husband, while Galen added quietly under his breath, "...not."--The Fire Stone” - Riley Carney

44. “Any food that requires enhancing by the use of chemical substances should in no way be considered a food.” - John H. Tobe

45. “Theatres are curious places, magician's trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramtic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, politcal intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

46. “Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.” - Daphne du Maurier

47. “The only truly dependable production technologies are those that are sustainable over the long term. By that very definition, they must avoid erosion, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste. Any rational food-production system will emphasize the well-being of the soil-air-water biosphere, the creatures which inhabit it, and the human beings who depend upon it.” - Eliot Coleman

48. “If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs.” - Natsuki Takaya

49. “TV cookery is very like internet porn - the overwhelming majority of its audience will never ever get to act out what's happening on screen.” - skint foodie

50. “Sashimi is velvet dust, verging on silk, or a bit of both, and the extraordinary alchemy of its gossamer essence allows it to preserve a milky density unknown even by clouds.... my cheeks recalled the effects of its profound caress.” - Muriel Barbery

51. “Anybody have any money?”Frank checked his pockets. “Three denarii from Camp Jupiter. Five dollars Canadian.”Hedge patted his gym shorts and pulled out what he found. “Three quarters, two dimes, a rubber band and—score! A piece of celery.”He started munching on the celery, eyeing the change and the rubber band like they might be next.” - Rick Riordan

52. “I did an about-face and veered into the sandwich shop. What I ordered is none of your business, but it was really good.” - Sue Grafton

53. “Killing a pig for a good old fry-up is one thing. But there’s no excuse for being cruel, even if you’re a bored teenage kid.” - Ozzy Osbourne

54. “Don't eat bear balls. Eat healthy, delectable, plant-based foods so that you will never fall over on your cat.” - Rip Esselstyn

55. “It is easy to think of potatoes, and fortunately for men who have not much money it is easy to think of them with a certain safety. Potatoes are one of the last things to disappear, in times of war, which is probably why they should not be forgotten in times of peace.” - M.F.K. Fisher

56. “I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook...," or "Poor little me...," or "This may taste awful...," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed -- eh bien, tant pis! Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile -- and learn from her mistakes.” - Julia Child

57. “Suatu pagi nanti, saya dan kamu akan berbagi telur dadar. Dengan dada berdebar, dan cinta yang berpendar.” - Hilda Nurina Sabikah

58. “If women are breadwinners and men bring home the bacon, why do people complain about having no dough? I'm confused. Also hungry.” - Stephen Colbert

59. “not every breakfast needs to be something worthy of posting to a food blog. Sometimes food is simply fuel, something we eat to live. But with TV ads and billboards and in-store displays saying otherwise—in colorful and provocative ways—that can be a hard case to make.” - Mary DeTurris Poust

60. “I will not eat them in a house, i will not eat them with a mouse,i will not eat them in a box i will not eat them with a fox, i will not eat them here of there i will not eat them anywhere, I do not like green eggs and ham i do not like them sam i am” - Dr. Seuss