“If everything doesn’t happen quite the way you’d like, it doesn’t make too much difference, because you can fix it.”

“Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you’ll have a marvelous time!”

“Tears mess up your makeup.”

“Life itself is the proper binge.”

“I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.”

“I’m not a chef. I think in this country, we use the term very loosely. I’m a cook and a teacher.”

“You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.”

“If you don’t pick your audience, you’re lost because you’re not really talking to anybody.”

“The more you know, the more you can create. There’s no end to imagination in the kitchen.”

“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”

“See, when I flipped it, I didn’t have the courage to do it the way I should’ve. But you can always pick it up, and if you’re alone in the kitchen, who is going to see? But the only way you learn how to flip things is just to flip them.”

“Remember, ‘No one’s more important than people’! In other words, friendship is the most important thing—not career or housework, or one’s fatigue—and it needs to be tended and nurtured.”

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook — try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun!”

“There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.”

“Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again.”

“To be a good cook you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.”

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

“In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.”

“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, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile, and learn from her mistakes.”

“Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper.”

“A party without a cake is just a meeting.”

“Nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should. Good results require that one take time and care.”

“I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu.”

“The service was deft and understated, and the food was spectacular. It was expensive, but, as Paul said, “you are so hypnotized by everything there that you feel grateful as you pay the bill.”