Top 100 Bourdain Quotes
#1. Frighteningly honest. What Anthony Bourdain did to the world of cooking in Kitchen Confidential, Leopold will do to the world of journalism. It's Sid & Nancy meets All the President's Men.
Rob Cohen
#2. Maybe that's enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom ... is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain
#3. It was a long time ago: 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt. It was a great story that was lasting, and I loved it so much. I also love Nora Ephron. I gobble up everything she writes. Also, I love Anthony Bourdain, very irreverent and funny.
Isabel Gillies
#4. I always want off-the-beaten-path, Anthony Bourdain-inspired travel.
Meghan Markle
#5. I love food shows: Anthony Bourdain, Iron Chef, Chopped, you name it.
Donnie Wahlberg
#6. I love travel shows. I love Anthony Bourdain. I love No Reservations. I always learn so much, and I wanted to see one from a gay perspective that explored LGBT communities around the world.
Ellen Page
#7. Food is entertainment now. People tune into 'Top Chef,' and they're not trying to replicate the recipes. Anthony Bourdain is entertainment. Instagramming your dishes is entertainment.
David Sax
#8. All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I'm into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I'd love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.
Jesse McCartney
#9. I like to watch Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, because I like them when they travel. I like Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa.' Giada is really nice, but I get a little bit bored with just staying in the kitchen.
Debi Mazar
#10. The food was what you might expect to find on Air Uganda tourist class:
Anthony Bourdain
#11. It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.
Anthony Bourdain
#12. I don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones.
Anthony Bourdain
#13. You'd have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I'd probably want to die in San Sebastian.
Anthony Bourdain
#14. Chefs are fond of hyperbole, so they can certainly talk that way. But on the whole, I think they probably have a more open mind than most people.
Anthony Bourdain
#15. So I didn't have time to craft artful lies and evasions even if I'd wanted to.
Anthony Bourdain
#16. I could eat bloody Elvis - if you put enough vinegar on him.
Anthony Bourdain
#17. I always entertain the notion that I'm wrong, or that I'll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.
Anthony Bourdain
#19. 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.
Anthony Bourdain
#20. I had field experience, a vocabulary and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.
Anthony Bourdain
#21. Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don't speak the language and haven't been before - that's really satisfying to me. I like that.
Anthony Bourdain
#22. I managed to reach a depth of self-loathing that usually takes a night of drinking to achieve.
Anthony Bourdain
#23. I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don't want my chefs to be cute and adorable.
Anthony Bourdain
#24. Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine's not so great.
Anthony Bourdain
#25. Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.
Anthony Bourdain
#26. Street food, I believe, is the salvation of the human race.
Anthony Bourdain
#27. I don't think people should be encouraged to look like Kate Moss; I think that's unreasonable. I think the normal human body should be glorified. By the same token, if you need a stick to wash yourself, you're not healthy.
Anthony Bourdain
#29. I am a delightfully evangelical guy about things I love. I am that annoying guy who sits everyone down and forces them to read some book I like. I'm looking across the full spectrum of genres.
Anthony Bourdain
#30. And I've long believed that good food, good eating is all about risk.
Anthony Bourdain
#31. People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice ... they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.
Anthony Bourdain
#32. Don't lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don't do it again. Ever
Anthony Bourdain
#33. [When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.
Anthony Bourdain
#35. As a chef I'm not your dietitian or your ethicist, I'm in the pleasure business.
Anthony Bourdain
#36. Cuisine in the world - whole roasted fish, Tuscan-style, for instance -
Anthony Bourdain
#37. I was a serious comic collector and fanboy as a kid. I wanted very badly to draw comic books for a lot of my childhood and early adolescence. So when you have an unfulfilled dream like that, when years later you find yourself in a position to make a graphic novel - hell yeah, I'm going to do that.
Anthony Bourdain
#39. I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.
Anthony Bourdain
#40. You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy.
Anthony Bourdain
#41. Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you.
Anthony Bourdain
#42. I did go into the Amazonian region of Brazil. They have prehistoric river fish that weigh in at around 600 pounds, which you don't see anywhere else. And foods that cannot be exported or even found in other parts of Brazil.
Anthony Bourdain
#43. Is there a sharper commentary on American culture and the world than The Simpsons?
Anthony Bourdain
#44. Recognise excellence. Celebrate weirdness and innovation. Oddballs should be cherished, if they can do something other people can't do.
Anthony Bourdain
#45. My love for chaos, conspiracy and the dark side of human nature colors the behavior of my charges, most of whom are already living near the fringes of acceptable conduct.
Anthony Bourdain
#46. I look at Guy Fieri and I just think, 'Jesus, I'm glad that's not me.'
Anthony Bourdain
#47. I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That's God talking.
Anthony Bourdain
#49. I wasn't that great a chef, and I don't think I'm that great a writer.
Anthony Bourdain
#50. Everything important I learned, I learned as a dishwasher.
Anthony Bourdain
#51. I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.
Anthony Bourdain
#52. Under 'Reasons for Leaving Last Job', never give the real reason, unless it's money or ambition.
Anthony Bourdain
#53. You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.
Anthony Bourdain
#54. I'm a radical environmentalist; I think the sooner we asphyxiate in our own filth, the better. The world will do better without us. Maybe some fuzzy animals will go with us, but there'll be plenty of other animals, and they'll be back.
Anthony Bourdain
#55. Unlicensed hooch from a stranger in a parking lot. Good idea? Yes, of course it is.
Anthony Bourdain
#56. I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.
Anthony Bourdain
#57. I'm sure one of the frustrations of being a Western enthusiast of Japanese food and culture is you're confronted every day with the absolute certainty that you will die ignorant.
Anthony Bourdain
#58. There are people with otherwise chaotic and disorganized lives, a certain type of person that's always found a home in the restaurant business in much the same way that a lot of people find a home in the military.
Anthony Bourdain
#59. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
Anthony Bourdain
#60. I'm a comic nerd. I'm a former serious collector for much of my childhood and early teen years I wanted to draw underground comics.
Anthony Bourdain
#61. I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I'd give up just about everything else for that.
Anthony Bourdain
#62. He doesn't yearn for a better, different life than the one he has - because he knows he's got a home in this one.
Anthony Bourdain
#63. I'm a control freak. If you're going to slap my name on something, I would like to control it.
Anthony Bourdain
#64. At the time of their deaths, three out of five Russian men, I am told, are found to have a blood-alcohol level exceeding what one needs to qualify for a DWI.
Anthony Bourdain
#65. I can't imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department than bargain sushi.
Anthony Bourdain
#67. I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.
Anthony Bourdain
#68. Only one in four has a chance at making it ... And right there, I knew that if one of us was getting off dope, and staying off dope, it was going to be me. I was going to live. I was the guy.
Anthony Bourdain
#69. Anyone who doesn't have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me.
Anthony Bourdain
#70. Only desperation can account for what the Chinese do in the name of 'medicine.' That's something you might remind your New Age friends who've gone gaga over 'holistic medicine' and 'alternative Chinese cures.
Anthony Bourdain
#71. I think people lose sight of the fact that chefs should be ultimately in the pleasure business, not in the look-at-me business.
Anthony Bourdain
#73. For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that.
Anthony Bourdain
#74. Just because I like sushi, doesn't mean I can make sushi. I've come to well understand how many years just to get sushi rice correct. It's a discipline that takes years and years and years. So, I leave that to the experts.
Anthony Bourdain
#75. I won't eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms. This isn't a hard call. They let you see the bathrooms. If the restaurant can't be bothered to replace the puck in the urinal or keep the toilets and floors clean, then just imagine what their refrigeration and work spaces look like.
Anthony Bourdain
#76. People's choice to become vegan, from people I've spoken to, seems motivated by fear.
Anthony Bourdain
#77. In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn't actually doing any writing.
Anthony Bourdain
#78. The bible of cooking. The all-time argument ender. Early in my cooking career, I wielded my Larousse like a weapon and it never let me down.
Anthony Bourdain
#79. I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas - fat, drugged, and completely out of it.
Anthony Bourdain
#80. I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure
Anthony Bourdain
#81. Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbones and Pernod.
Anthony Bourdain
#82. It just seems there's better things to do in your life than be on television if it's not interesting, if it's not challenging, if it's not fun. You know? When it stops being those things for me, I'll stop making television.
Anthony Bourdain
#83. This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.
Anthony Bourdain
#84. In that sense, what a great way to live, if you could always do things that interest you, and do them with people who interest you.
Anthony Bourdain
#85. My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.
Anthony Bourdain
#86. Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.
Anthony Bourdain
#87. Always entertain the possibility that something, no matter how squiggly and scary looking, might just be good.
Anthony Bourdain
#88. I'm a decent cook; I'm a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.
Anthony Bourdain
#89. I'm very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride.
Anthony Bourdain
#90. When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.
Anthony Bourdain
#91. A proper saute pan, for instance, should cause serious head injury if brought down hard against someone's skull. If you have any doubts about which will dent - the victim's head or your pan - then throw that pan right in the trash.
Anthony Bourdain
#92. You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base.
Anthony Bourdain
#93. For their own good, vegetarians should never be allowed near fine beers and ales. It will only make them loud and belligerent, and they lack the physical strength and aggressive nature to back up any drunken assertions.
Anthony Bourdain
#94. I believe - to the best of my recollection, anyway - that I soon made the classic error of moving from margaritas to actual shots of straight tequila. It does make it easier to meet new people.
Anthony Bourdain
#95. There are very sophisticated, very time-consuming dishes to prepare; always from scratch, and always in excess of what you could possibly need. You tend to kill your guests with kindness around here.
Anthony Bourdain
#97. I love the masochistic aspect of eating seething, real Sichuan food in Sichuan Province.
Anthony Bourdain
#99. To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things - and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect.
Anthony Bourdain
#100. I am in no way supportive of hunting for trophies or sport - would never do it and don't like it that others do. But if you kill it, then eat it, it's fine.
Anthony Bourdain
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