Ask me about my love language and I’ll point you to the kitchen. Food quotes have always been my favorite kind of quotes, because food is where life’s best moments happen — around tables, over shared plates, in the smell of something delicious drifting from the oven.
Some of my happiest memories are food memories: my grandmother’s recipes measured in handfuls, late-night snacks with friends, the first bite of something I cooked that actually turned out right. Food isn’t just fuel — it’s celebration, comfort, culture, and connection all on one plate.
I’ve updated this collection with fresh new lines I wrote while very hungry (always the best inspiration), alongside the tastiest timeless wisdom. Whether you need a caption for your foodie photos, a toast for the dinner table, or just a reminder to savor the good stuff, dig in.
A bagel is a doughnut with the sin removed.” – George Rosenbaum
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” – Barbara Johnson
A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen.” – Emily Looney
A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do.” – P.J. O’Rourke
A golfer’s diet: live on greens as much as possible.”
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.” – James Beard
A little chocolate a day keeps the doctor at the ba.” – Marcia Carrington
A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat.” – Old New York Proverb
A nickel’s worth of goulash beats a five dollar can of vitamines.” – Martin H. Fischer
A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.” – Thomas Keller
A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap.” – Mitch Hedberg
According to my mother, there pretty much wasn’t anything I wouldn’t eat as a child… I was even inclined to dig into stuff about which she expressed open disgust… cheap Chinese food with pepper so hot it made your gums feel like a medieval dentist had been at them.” – Alice Dreger
According to the latest authorities, spring fever, the cause of so much loss of energy can be prevented by homemakers if they will feed their families in the winter season with plenty of green vegetables.” – Richard Gay Neville
After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.” – Oscar Wilde
After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual food” out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps.” – Miss Piggy
Age and glasses of wine should never be counted.” – Unknown
Alas! my child, where is the Pen That can do justice to the Hen?Like Royalty, she goes her way, Laying foundations every day, Though not for Public Buildings, yet For Custard, Cake and Omelette….No wonder, Child, we prize the Hen, Whose Egg is Mightier than the Pen.– Oliver Herford, The Hen”
All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.” – John Gunther
All sorrows are less with bread.” – Miguel de Cervantes
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” – Charles M. Shulz
Always eat grapes downward — that is eating the best grapes first; in this way, there will be none better left on the bench, and each grape will seem good down to the last. If you eat the other way, you will not have a good grape in the lot.” – Samuel Butler
Amomum melegueta! I had never seen a whole one before. The spice trade calls them Guinea peppers. Such little nuggets launched armadas in the old days, sails from Spain and Portugal. Men died for those peppers for gold and glory. They are the hottest things that grow, and their seeds are praised as the grains of paradise.” – James Street (1903–1954)
An apple is an excellent thing — until you have tried a peach.” – George du Maurier
An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.” – Will Rogers
And, of course, the funniest food of all, kumquats.” – George Carlin
Animals feed; man eats; only a man of wit knows how to eat.” – Jean Anthelme
Anyhow, the hole in the doughnut is at least digestible.” – H.L. Mencken
Anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?’” – Anthony Bourdain
Anything is good if it’s made of chocolate.” – Jo Brand
Apelles gave us supper as if he had butchered a garden, thinking he was feeding sheep and not friends. There were radishes, chicory, fenugreek, lettuces, leeks, onions, basil, mint, rue, and asparagus. I was afraid that after all these things, he would serve me with hay, so when I had eaten some half-soaked lupins, I went off.” – Ammianus (2nd century A.D.)
Apples have other virtues than those that nourish merely. They refresh the spirits by their taste and perfume… A dish of choice kinds standing in one’s study shall perfume his composition and rejoice his temper whensoever he tastes them.” – Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)
As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” – Joan Gussow
As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold, and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It’s time to start making soup again.” – Leslie Newman
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” – Orson Welles
Avoid fruit and nuts. You are what you eat.” – Jim Davis
Bachelor’s fare: bread and cheese, and kisses.” – Jonathan Swift
Beauty isn’t something on the outside. It’s your insides that count! You gotta eat green stuff to make sure you’re pretty on the inside.” – Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo video game) written by Takayuki Ikkaku
Bread and butter, devoid of charm in the drawing-room, is ambrosia eating under a tree.” – Elizabeth Russell
Bread baking is one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.” – M.F.K. Fisher
Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It is not coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.” – Lionel Poilane
But they do not eat hot peppers in the United States. Here and there, yes. But hot peppers, there are weak peppers here.” – James Street (1903–1954)
Butter is the most delicate of foods among barbarous nations, and one which distinguishes the wealthy from the multitude at large.” – Pliny
By eating many fruits and vegetables in place of fast food and junk food, people could avoid obesity.” – David H. Murdock
Cakes are healthy too. You just eat a small slice.” – Mary Berry
Celery is as fresh and clean as a rainy day after a spell of heat. It crackles pleasantly in the mouth…. it should be eaten alone, for it is the only food which one really wants to hear oneself eat.” – A.A. Milne (1882–1956)
Cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman
Chemicals, n: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.”
Chili represents your three stages of matter: solid, liquid, and eventually gas.” – Roseanne
Chowder breathes reassurance. It steams consolation.” – Clementine Paddleford
Clean water and access to food are some of the simplest things that we can take for granted each and every day. In places like Africa, these can be some of the hardest resources to attain if you live in a rural area.” – Marcus Samuelsson
Cold beer & pizza are spiritual.” – Betsy Cañas Garmon
Cole’s Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.”
Condensed milk is wonderful. I don’t see how they can get a cow to sit down on those little cans.” – Fred Allen
Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat.” – Guy Fieri
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne
Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.” – Ambrose Bierce
Dietician Von Eiffel controls the Wuff-Whiffer, our Diet-Devising Computerized Sniffer, on which you just simply lie down in repose and sniff at good food as it goes past your nose…he’ll find out by Sniff-Scan the foods you like most.And when that guy finds out what you like, you can bet it won’t be on your diet.From here on, forget it!– Dr. Seuss
Divine Providence has spread her table everywhere, not with a juiceless green carpet, but with succulent herbage and nourishing grass, upon which most beasts feed.” – Thomas More
Doctors confuse color and chemistry. The white meat of the chicken is, therefore, the essence of a light diet, and dark meat is poison.” – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.” – English Proverb
Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” – Michael Pollan
Don’t forget that the flavors of wine and cheese depend upon the types of infecting microörganisms.” – Martin H. Fischer
Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” – Adelle Davis
Eating good food is my favorite thing in the world. Nothing is more blissful.” – Justine Larbalestier
Eating is always a decision; nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.” – Albert Ellis
Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table, and you want to cook for them, you’re inviting a person into your life.” – Maya Angelou
Every time you use the word ‘healthy,’ you lose. The key is to make yummy, delicious food that happens to be healthy.” – Marcus Samuelsson
Everyone would be healthier if they didn’t eat junk food.” – Robert Atkins
Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don’t eat has been proved to be indispensable for life. But I go marching on.” – George Bernard Shaw
Everything you see I owe to spaghetti..” – Sophia Loren
First we eat, then we do everything else.” – M.F.K. Fisher
Fish is the only food that is considered spoiled once it smells like what it is.” – P.J. O’Rourke
Fish, to taste right, must swim three times — in water, in butter, and in wine.” – Polish Proverb
Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s the nourishment of the soul and body; it truly loves.” – Giada De Laurentiis
Food can be very transformational, and it can be more than just about a dish. That’s what happened to me when I first went to France. I fell in love with it. And if you fall in love, well, then everything is easy.” – Alice Waters
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
Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.” – Dorothy Day
Food for us comes from our relatives, whether they have wings or fins or roots. That is how we consider food. Food has a culture. It has a history. It has a story. It has relationships.” – Winona LaDuke
Food is a huge passion of mine, and because I want to eat whatever I want, I run every morning, and then I do weights a few times a week. It’s just how I can balance eating pancakes in the morning, a big burger for lunch, and then a fat steak and cheesecake at night.” – Matt Barr
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” – Fran Lebowitz
Food is art and science. So, you take something out. You have to work with the recipe to make sure that you’re providing delicious food with cleaner labels.” – Denise Morrison
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
Food is for eating, and good food is to be enjoyed… I think food is, actually, very beautiful in itself.” – Delia Smith
Food is like sex: When you abstain, even the worst stuff begins to look good.” – Beth McCollister
Food is not just about eating energy. It’s an experience.” – Guy Fieri
Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving, and identity.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” – James Beard
Food is really and truly the most effective medicine.” – Joel Fuhrman
Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.” – Alan D. Wolfelt
Food is the most primitive form of comfort.” – Sheila Graham
Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It’s not about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity.” – Louise Fresco
Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for.” – David Chang
For as nutrition is the best friend a human body ever has, so its worst enemy is stimulation.” – Dr. James C. Jackson
For me, good food starts with a good product.” – Jean-Georges Vongerichten
Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” – James Beard
Good food ain’t cheap, and cheap food ain’t good.”
Good food ends with good talk.” – Geoffrey Neighbor
Good food is healthy food. Food is supposed to sustain you so you can live better, not so you can eat more. Some people eat to live, and some people live to eat.” – Yolanda Adams
Great food is like great sex. The more you have, the more you want.” – Gael Greene
Greens to have a complex history in the South. They were something that people could go and gather after working a long shift at the factory. So although greens were one of the earlier items to be canned and sold, people didn’t choose to spend their grocery money on them when they first had money to do so. Greens can be seen as a protest against the time clock that industrialization introduced,” Engelhardt says. Gathering greens served as a means for both men and women to resist new factory and mine-driven gender roles, as a walk in the woods did not involve company scrip or time clock..” – Vivé Griffith
Growing up, my mom made dinner every night. Usually, this would be a large salad with kale, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, all organic, of course, and sometimes she’d sprinkle nuts on top for texture. Kale has a metallic taste, like chewing on the hood of a Mercedes. No, something safer, like a Volvo.” – Jarod Kintz
He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating oysters.” – James I
He who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.” – Samuel Johnson
He who eats alone chokes alone.” – Arabian Proverb
Hence various trees their various fruits produce, Some for delightful taste, and some for use.Hence sprouting plants enrich the plain and wood, For physic, some, and some designed for food.– Richard Blackmore, Wisdom of God in the Vegetable Creation,” 1712
Here is a Southerner, graceful and slim; in flavor, no nut is quite equal to him. Ha, Monsieur Pecan, you know what it means to be served with black coffee in French New Orleans.– Pearl Rivers, Little Nut People,” in St. Nicholas, January 1892
Hey yogurt, if you’re so cultured, how come I never see you at the opera.” – Attributed to Stephen Colbert
High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Super squash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us.” – Annita Manning
Hilario Villareal is the best pepper man in Feliz. He eats fruits for breakfast. With beer. He grows his own peppers and has a secret. He wet-rots leaves for his plants and grows them on a south slope that is sheltered on three sides. And in the dry season, he waters them from a bucket. I tell you to have respect for his peppers. His soil is very sour, and his peppers are very hot.” – James Street (1903–1954)
Hot? Those things? They are for children. For nursing children. And furious are for growing boys. They’ll wake you up all right, and put fire in your blood. But listen, my friend, I’m a hot-pepper man. And when I say hot-pepper man, I mean hot-pepper man.” – James Street (1903–1954)
Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don’t forget the food. You can go for a week without laughing.” – Joss Whedon
Hunger is a good cook.” – Proverb
I am a better person when I have less on my plate.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food.” – Erma Bombeck
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” – W. C. Fields
I don’t think America will have really made it until we have our own salad dressing. Until then, we’re stuck behind the French, Italians, Russians, and Caesarians.” – Pat McNelis
I enjoy my food. I like to grill; I do that a lot. I like meat and have big dinners – steak, red meat splurges, prime cuts.” – Taylor Kinney
I get way too much happiness from good food.” – Elizabeth Olsen
I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.” – Oscar Wilde
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
I have no truck with lettuce, cabbage, and similar chlorophyll. Any dietitian will tell you that a running foot of apple strudel contains four times the vitamins of a bushel of beans.” – S.J. Perelman
I have so mushroomed in my heart for you.” – Popular internet meme
I just inhaled kimchi ramen. The nose on fire. The next chapter may be obscured by tears.” – MCM
I know once people get connected to real food, they never change back.” – Alice Waters
I like food. I like eating. And I don’t want to deprive myself of good food.” – Sarah Michelle Gellar
I love food. I’m a big food person. I’m really passionate about eating good food all the time.” – Dreama Walker
I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” – Scott Adams
I never had a piece of toast Particularly long and wide, But fell upon the sanded floor, And always on the buttered side.– James Payn
I realized very early the power of food to evoke memory, to bring people together, to transport you to other places, and I wanted to be a part of that.” – Jose Andres Puerta
I take a vitamin every day. It’s called a steak.” – Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick
I think about food literally all day every day. It’s a thing.” – Taylor Swift
I was looking forward to some real Capsicums, fresh from the bush, and oozing their pungent piperine.” – James Street (1903–1954)
I was warm inside from the beer and peppers, and felt chipper for the first time in weeks.” – James Street (1903–1954)
I watch cooking change the cook, just as it transforms the food.” – Laura Esquivel
I went to a restaurant that serves breakfast anytime.” So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.” – Steven Wright
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead — not sick, not wounded — dead.” – Woody Allen
I would like to find a stew that will give me heartburn immediately, instead of at three o’clock in the morning.” – John Barrymore
I would think wolves would prefer spicy things. It’s born that crave sweets.” – Isuna Hasekura
Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.” – Voltaire
If I have one addiction in life, it’s probably food.” – Liam Hemsworth
If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.” – Michael Pollan
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.” – Abraham Lincoln
If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it.” – Steven Wright
If we’re not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn’t settle for junk food.” – Sally Edwards
If wishes and buts were clusters of nuts, we’d all have a bowl of granola.” – From Strangers with Candy
If you are a human being, it’s in your DNA to want bacon.” – Jan Charles
If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry.”
If you don’t know what’s meant by God, watch a forsythia branch or a lettuce leaf sprout.” – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
If you don’t recognize an ingredient, your body won’t either.”
If you maintain a healthy diet, or at least are smart about your food choices, you’ll still see the pounds come off.” – Misty May-Treanor
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
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.” – Julia Child
In Mexico, we have a word for sushi: bait.” – José Simons
In they drop with a click, clack, click, Kernels so hard and yellow; Round they whirl with a hop, skip, hop, Each little dancing fellow. Up they leap with a snap! Crack! Snap! Tossing so light and airy; Out they pour with a soft, swift rush, Snowballs fit for a fairy!– Sophia T. Newman
In ‘The Republic’ he [Plato] states that the enjoyment of food is not a true pleasure because the purpose of eating is to relieve pain — hunger.” – Mark Kurlansky
It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption.” – Edward Bunyard
It was a little four-roomed cottage where the boy lived, and his mother—good soul!—gave us hot bacon for supper, and we ate it all—five pounds—and a jam tart afterward, and two pots of tea, and then we went to bed.” – Jerome K. Jerome
It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.” – Robert Fuoss
It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.” – Meryl Streep
It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” – Lewis Grizzard
It’s important to begin a search on a full stomach.” – Henry Bromel
It’s like spicy food — sometimes you have to tone it down so more people can enjoy it.” – Kenneth Edmonds
It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.” – Kurt Cobain
I’d rather have bread and cheese with my darlings than roast turkey, cranberry sauce, and mince-pie all alone.” – Jay Benson Hamilton
I’m just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.” – Maya Angelou
I’m not sure what makes pepperoni so good — if it’s the pepper or the one.” – S.A. Sachs
I’m pretty sure that eating chocolate keeps wrinkles away because I have never seen a ten-year-old with a Hershey bar and crows feet.” – Amy Neftzger
I’m sorry, was this chicken seasoned with molten lava.” – Psych
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
Just bought lean chicken breasts instead of hot wings for supper because I’m a stupid [f@%’ing] mature adult.” – Jason Sweeney
Keep as near as ever you can to the first sources of supply—fruits and vegetables.” – B.W. Richardson
Large, naked raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who lie in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter.” – Fran Lebowitz
Laughter is brightest in the place where the food is.” – Irish Proverb
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates
Lettuce is like a conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.” – Charles Dudley Warner
Lettuce, greens, and celery, though much eaten, are worse than cabbage, being equally indigestible without the addition of condiments. Besides, the lettuce contains narcotic properties. It is said of Galen, that he used to obtain from ahead of it, eaten on going to bed, all the good effects of a dose of opium.” – William Andrus Alcott
Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.” – Audrey Hepburn
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.” – Doug Larson
Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” – Federico Fellini
Life is an onion, and one cries while peeling it.” – French Proverb
Life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks.” – Marilyn Wann
Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” – Ernestine Ulmer
Mac and cheese, that’s God’s best handiwork.” – Bones
Man should not try to avoid stress any more than he would shun food, love, or exercise.” – Hans Selye
Marcie: How can you pig-out on all that junk food every day, sir?Peppermint Patty: Life is more than carrot sticks, Marcie.– Charles Schulz
Mints. Do you want your breath to be acceptable for 15 minutes? Reach for mints. It’s like brushing your teeth — but with sugar.” – Saturday Night Live
Most fast food is fried. Fried food tastes great, and people don’t seem to care about the fat aspect.” – Eric Schlosser
Most of the food allergies die under garlic and onion.” – Martin H. Fischer
Mrs. Jakes had sent up stew and apple pie. Oh, good,” said Miss Marcy. Stew’s so comforting on a rainy day..” – Dodie Smith
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.” – G. K. Chesterton
My best hostess tip is to have good food and really good music.” – Jennifer Aniston
My doctor told me I had to stop throwing intimate dinners for four unless there are three other people.” – Orson Welles
My favorite animal is steak.” – Fran Lebowitz
My lips stung, and the lining of my mouth was hot with quick and then prickling stings. I had taken two red frenzies, and without sweat, without the hard blowing of the breath. Then a red torrid. My lips had hardened to the sting, but my mouth was ridging inside. Then the tingle was in my throat and deep down. Now a greenish-yellow fury. I felt the sweat ooze out on the back of my neck, down under my collar. I was hurting, the numbing burn of piperine, a crystalline alkaloid that tightens the tissues like wet rawhide. Each minute got longer. Next, a green buster. The heat seared down to my belly.” – James Street (1903–1954)
My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.” – Dolly Parton
Never eat more than you can lift.” – Miss Piggy
Never make eye contact while eating a banana.”
No man is lonely eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention.” – Christopher Morley
No, I don’t make the soup. You can’t build a meal on a lake.” – Elsie de Wolfe
Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialistic, otherworldly, New Age spiritual types. But if the material world is merely an illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu, and seaweed slime.” – Edward Abbey
Not eating meat is a decision; eating meat is an instinct.” – Denis Leary
Now, why is diagonal cutting better than cutting straight across? Because the corner of a triangularly cut slice gives you an ideal first bite. With rectangularly cut toast, you have to angle the shape into your mouth, as if you were angling a big dresser through a hall doorway: you have to catch one corner of your mouth with one corner of the toast and then slightly and carefully turn the toast, drawing the mouth open with it so that the far corner of the toast can clear; only then do you chomp down. Also, with the diagonal slice, most of the tapered bite is situated right up near the front of your mouth, where you want it to be as you begin to chew. With the rectangular slice, a cumbersome fraction is riding out of control, high on the dome of the tongue.” – Nicholson Baker
O, the joys of nutting! The clusters hang high, But the crook brings the branches anear…We strip the bold clusters and set the branch free, And deem we have all its nuts shaken; But others pop out ‘neath the leaves, we can see, So we own we are somewhat mistaken.– James Rigg, Nutting Time,” Wild Flower Lyrics and Other Poems, 1897
Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot.” – John Updike
Oh. We were thinking Parmesan meant, not coming from Parma,” but coming from a green shaker can..” – Barbara Kingsolver
Oh, you may have the wild rose As gentle as a maiden’s dream; I’ll take a fairer bloom that blows—The wild strawberry (with cream)!…– Gerald Raftery
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf
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
One should eat to live, not live to eat.” – Moliere
One simply does not drive home from McDonald’s without eating any fries.” – Internet meme
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.” – Oscar Wilde
Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.” – Ludwig van Beethoven
Our breakfast consisted of what the Squire denominated true old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he censured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old English heartiness; and though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard.” – Washington Irving
Part of the secret of success is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” – Mark Twain
Patience is the secret to good food.” – Gail Simmons
People want honest, flavourful food, not some show-off meal that takes days to prepare.” – Ted Allen
People who love to eat are always the best people.” – Julia Child
People will travel anywhere for good food – it’s crazy.” – Rene Redzepi
Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I’d stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.” – Paul Bloom
Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt. That’s why I love vegetables. You know what they’re about.” – Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt
Pollyanna was carrying calf’s-foot jelly to Mrs. Snow to-day… If it’s Monday she’s bound to say she wished ‘Twas Sunday, and if you take her jelly you’re pretty sure ter hear she wanted chicken — but if you did bring her chicken, she’d be jest hankerin’ for lamb broth!… or… tripe, or onions…” – Eleanor H. Porter
Popcorn for breakfast! Why not? It’s a grain. It’s like, like, grits, but with high self-esteem.” – James Patterson
Practice safe eating — always use condiments.”
Proust had his madeleines; I am devastated by the scent of yeast bread rising.” – Bert Greene
Provided it be well and truly made there is really for the confirmed turophile no such thing as a bad cheese. A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull. It may be naive; it may be over sophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman
Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.” – Ruth Reichl
Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you!.” – Tommy Smothers
Rice is born in water and must die in wine.” – Italian Proverb
Ripe grapes with purpling luster shine Where graceful droop the clinging vine.– Phebe A. Holder
Salt looks like sugar.” – Proverb
Sauerkraut may be reckoned among the wholesomest foods.” – Sebastian Kneipp
Sea vegetables are the ocean’s mineral and vitamin bank…” – Kristina Turner
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.” – Erma Bombeck
Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn.” – Garrison Keillor
She is fond of greens who kisses the gardener.”
Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people.” – Elizabeth Berry
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.” – Franz Kafka
Someone has to stand up and say the answer isn’t another pill. The answer is spinach.” – Bill Maher
Soup and fish explain half the emotions of human life.” – Sydney Smith
Soup is just a way of screwing you out of a meal.” – Jay Leno
Soup is liquid comfort.”
Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.” – Sophia Loren
Stored away in some brain cell is the image of a long-departed aunt, you haven’t thought of in 30 years. Stored away in another cell is the image of a pink pony stitched on your first set of baby pajamas. All it takes to get that aunt mounted on the back of that pony is to eat a hunk of meatloaf immediately before going to bed.” – Robert Brault
Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands — and then eat just one of the pieces.” – Judith Viorst
Tall hollyhocks may have no peers In beauty, dew-empearled at morn,But I like stalks that bear the ears Of luscious Golden Bantam corn!…– Gerald Raftery
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
That a slender wooden tree twig can give birth to luscious pears, apples, peaches remains an extraordinary feat.” – Dr. SunWolf
The adulteration of food and drinks has become almost as general as the use of the article itself. Scarcely an article used by men in civilized countries has escaped this process, where it was possible to unite some cheaper substance with it. Flour, coffee, tea, sugar, butter, and a hundred other articles that undergo this adulteration process. The methods have been so often exposed, that the public is tolerably acquainted with the manipulations these substances undergo at the hands of experts.” – What We Eat
The bagel, an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.” – Beatrice & Ira Freeman
The belly rules the mind.” – Spanish Proverb
The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.” – Maya Angelou
The bread is sweet; mamma’s hands filled it with love when she made it; the cheese is fresh, and the tea is warm.” – Jay Benson Hamilton
The breakfast slimes, angel food cake, doughnuts and coffee, white bread, and gravy cannot build an enduring nation.” – Martin H. Fischer
The chief pleasure in eating does not consist of costly seasoning, or exquisite flavor, but in yourself.” – Horace
The colors of a fresh garden salad are so extraordinary, no painter’s pallet can duplicate nature’s artistry.” – Dr. SunWolf
The good man suffers but to gain, And every virtue springs from pain; As aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crushed or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around.– Oliver Goldsmith
The greatest delight the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The inventor of soda crackers has a place in hell.” – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love, and death.” – E.M. Forster
The market is full of delights in July: Fresh vegetables, berries, red cherries for pie!– Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron
The most dangerous food is wedding cake.” – James Thurber
The onion is the truffle of the poor.” – Robert J. Courtine
The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve to have a what-the-hell attitude.” – Julia Child
The only thing I like better than talking about food is eating.” – John Walters
The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” – Julia Child
The reason it’s called Grape Nuts” is that it contains dextrose,” which is also sometimes called grape sugar,” and also because Grape Nuts” is catchier, in terms of marketing, than A Cross Between Gerbil Food and Gravel,” which is what it tastes like.” – Dave Barry
The secret of food lies in memory – of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is.” – Jerry Saltz
The secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” – Mark Twain
The secret of success is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” – Mark Twain
The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.” – M.F.K. Fisher
The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite.” – William Shakespeare
The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.” – George Miller
The U.S. palate now understands spicy.” – Lynn Dornblaser
The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live.” – Confucius
There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect for eating.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments.” – Chris Rock
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi
There is a lot more juice in grapefruit than meets the eye.”
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” – George Bernard Shaw
There is no such thing as a little garlic.” – A. Baer
There is nothing better on a cold wintry day than a properly made pot pie.” – Craig Claiborne
There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t, and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will.” – Robert Frost
There is something in the flavor and aroma of the fresh strawberry that no amount of skill has been able to preserve.” – E.F. White
There were green infernos and green terrors, yellow jackets and yellow furies, red toroids, and red frenzies.” – James Street (1903–1954)
There’s no such thing as soy milk. It’s just soy juice.” – Lewis Black
There’s something about getting up at 5 a.m., feeding the stock and chickens, and milking a couple of cows before breakfast that gives you a lifelong respect for the price of butter and eggs.” – Bill Vaughan
They claim red meat is bad for you. But I never saw a sick-looking tiger..” – Chi Chi Rodriguez
They had a good slice of lean ham with a border of fat that shone like a piece of ice from a spring.” – Jean Giono (1895–1970)
They have hot peppers in Louisiana. Little red devils with fire in their skin and hell in their seeds.” – James Street (1903–1954)
This country is just beginning to feel that it is at war. The sugar shortage is one of the greatest blessings that ever happened to the people of this country, and if it has done nothing better than to teach us that we can do without sugar, the war will have paid for itself… The Lord never intended the child to develop a sweet tooth. He knew it would be a bad tooth… Sugar is the curse of this country.” – Harvey W. Wiley
This is every cook’s opinion -no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.– Jonathan Swift
This is the kind of plant that endears itself to a teenage boy. These weren’t vegetables. They were weapons! And it was legal to grow them.” – James Gorman
This special feeling towards fruit, its glory, and abundance, is I would say universal… We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.” – Jane Grigson
Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.”
To eat is to appropriate by destruction.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
To me, food is as much about the moment, the occasion, the location, and the company as it is about the taste.” – Heston Blumenthal
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.” – Mark Twain
Truly, love is delightful and pleasant food, supplying, as it does, rest to the weary, strength to the weak, and joy to the sorrowful. It, in fact, renders the yoke of truth easy and it’s burden light.” – Saint Bernard
Tyler turned down the candy because it would make him run slower.” – Chris Powell/Ashley Hylton
Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” – Jim Davis
Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.” – Fran Lebowitz
We all eat, and it would be a sad waste of an opportunity to eat badly.” – Anna Thomas
We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors, and furniture polish is made from real lemons.” – Alfred E. Newman
We come now to our own land, with which from the cheese-lover’s viewpoint we may merge our good neighbor Canada. A Rembrandtesque picture presents itself, a dramatic mingling of light and shade. The blackest shadow, of course, is cast by processed cheese.” The word should always, like Soviet democracy,” be framed in quotes, for no matter what the law may say, I refuse to call this cheese… It represents the triumph of technology over conscience…Bernard Shaw once warned us (he was speaking of mass entertainment) to be sure to get what we liked; otherwise, we might begin to like what we got. There is the point—not that processed cheese” is so bad in itself (though it is) but that its convenience, neatness, and cheapness give it so many advantages that it may elbow real cheese aside and in the end compass the death of our cheese-palates. Let us not be fooled. My guinea-pig son, aged one year and seven months, was not: fed a cheese spread,” he spat it out; fed a tiny bit of Stilton he took to it like an angel. Give our American children the processed corpse of milk, and they will grow (I dare not say mature) into processed men, all package and no character.” – Clifton Fadiman
We don’t get fat because we overeat; we overeat because we’re getting fat.” – Gary Taubes
We don’t like spicy food. Once, we found red fang-shaped fruit among the cargo of a shipwreck. We ate it and regretted it loud and long.” – Isuna Hasekura
We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse — 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.” – Joel Salatin
We don’t need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in different things. You want the vegetables — the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers — to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.” – Jane Elliot
We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout.” – June Carter Cash
We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” – David Mamet
We think fast food is equivalent to pornography, nutritionally speaking.” – Steve Elbert
Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray.”
Well, the food’s always the way to anybody’s heart, I think, guy or girl.” – Josh Hutcherson
What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.” – A.A. Milne
What is stronger than a mother’s love? The smell of spring onions on your girl’s breath.” – Four Hundred Laughs
When a man’s stomach is full, it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor.” – Euripides
When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste.” – Laiko Bahrs
When I add a spoon of honey to my tea, I give thanks to a dozen bees for the work of their whole lives. When my finger sweeps the final drop of sweetness from the jar, I know we’ve enjoyed the nectar from over a million flowers. This is what honey is: the souls of flowers, a food to please the gods. Honeyeaters know that to have a joyful heart, one must live life like the bees, sipping the sweet nectar from each moment as it blooms. And Life, like the world of honey, has its enchantments and stings….” – Ingrid Goff-Madoff
When you don’t have food in your life, just for a day, it makes you realize you’re lucky to have it the next day. So the day after fasting, the music that comes out will be very joyous.” – Chris Martin
Whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that with our food, all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water — of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food, or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.” – Joel Salatin
Whoever needs milk, bows to the animal.” – Yiddish saying
Wine is bottled poetry.” – Robert Luis Stevenson
Worries go down better with soup.” – Jewish Proverb
Yeah, where I come from, we eat our sushi cooked—medium-rare. And it’s made out of a cow.” – John Henson
You are what you eat. For example, if you eat garlic, you’re apt to be a hermit.” – Franklin P. Jones
You can do a lot for your diet by eliminating foods that have mascots.” – Ted Spiker
You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.” – Charles Kuralt
You can say this for ready-mixes — the next generation isn’t going to have any trouble making pies exactly like mother used to make.” – Earl Wilson
You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.” – Ronald Reagan
You can tell how long a couple has been married by whether they are on their first, second, or third bottle of Tabasco.” – Bruce By
You can’t expect to look like a million bucks if you eat from the dollar menu.”
You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.” – Kurt Vonnegut
You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.” – Paul Prudhomme
You know how I feel about tacos. It’s the only food shaped like a smile. A beef smile.” – Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and Michael Pennie
Your diet is a bank account. Good food choices are good investments.” – Bethenny Frankel
Fresh Food Quotes
“Good food is a love letter you get to eat.” — Unknown
“Life is too short for bad meals and cold pizza.” — Unknown
“The best seasoning is hunger and good company.” — Unknown
“Food tastes better when it’s shared — that’s just science.” — Unknown
“A well-cooked meal is proof that patience has flavor.” — Unknown
“Comfort food is a hug you can taste.” — Unknown
“Cooking is love made visible, one dish at a time.” — Unknown
“The kitchen is the heart of every home — feed it well.” — Unknown
“Great conversations happen over great food. Coincidence? Never.” — Unknown
“Dessert first is a lifestyle, not a mistake.” — Unknown
“Food brings people together like nothing else on earth.” — Unknown
“A recipe is just a story told in flavors.” — Unknown
“Eat the cake. Life’s too short to save the good part for later.” — Unknown
“The smell of fresh bread can fix almost any bad mood.” — Unknown
“Home is wherever someone cooks for you with love.” — Unknown
“Spices are tiny passports to faraway places.” — Unknown
“A family dinner table holds more history than any book.” — Unknown
“Good food, good mood — it’s really that simple.” — Unknown
“Cooking for someone is saying ‘I love you’ without words.” — Unknown
“Leftovers are just tomorrow’s treasure.” — Unknown
“The first bite of something delicious is a tiny celebration.” — Unknown
“Food is the universal language everyone speaks fluently.” — Unknown
“A hot meal on a cold day is one of life’s purest joys.” — Unknown
“Recipes get passed down; the love in them never fades.” — Unknown
“Eat slowly, savor deeply, thank the cook.” — Unknown
“Chocolate solves problems that talking can’t.” — Unknown
“The best meals are the ones you didn’t expect.” — Unknown
“Street food teaches you more about a place than any guidebook.” — Unknown
“A shared plate makes strangers into friends.” — Unknown
“Breakfast is a promise that today can be good.” — Unknown
“Food made with love always tastes like more.” — Unknown
“The perfect bite is worth a thousand words.” — Unknown
“Cooking is the one art you get to eat afterward.” — Unknown
“Gather around the table; that’s where the real stories live.” — Unknown
“A picnic turns an ordinary day into an occasion.” — Unknown
“Soup on a rainy day is nature’s therapy.” — Unknown
“Try the dish you can’t pronounce — adventure starts on the plate.” — Unknown
“Grandma’s recipes are measured in handfuls and heart.” — Unknown
“Food is memory you can taste.” — Unknown
“The joy of cooking is only matched by the joy of eating.” — Unknown
“A full table means a full heart.” — Unknown
“Season generously; life’s too short for bland.” — Unknown
“The best ingredient in any dish is the person you share it with.” — Unknown
“Midnight snacks taste better because the world is quiet.” — Unknown
“Every cuisine is a culture saying hello.” — Unknown
“Good bread and good friends — that’s a feast.” — Unknown
“A home-cooked meal beats a fancy restaurant every single time.” — Unknown
“Food is fuel, but great food is joy.” — Unknown
“The kitchen smells of garlic and laughter — that’s happiness.” — Unknown
“Don’t skip dessert; regret is worse than calories.” — Unknown
“A potluck is proof that everyone has something delicious to offer.” — Unknown
“Fresh ingredients, simple recipes, honest flavors — perfection.” — Unknown
“Eat what makes you happy; life’s too short for joyless food.” — Unknown
“The table is where families become stories.” — Unknown
“Hot coffee, warm toast, quiet morning — small luxuries, big life.” — Unknown
“Cooking turns a house into a home.” — Unknown
“Share your food; it’s the oldest form of friendship.” — Unknown
“Every great day starts with a great breakfast.” — Unknown
“Food is the shortest distance between two hearts.” — Unknown
“Taste everything once — curiosity is the best appetizer.” — Unknown
Frequently Asked Questions About Food Quotes
What are some good food quotes for Instagram captions?
Short, playful lines about loving food work best — cravings, comfort food, cooking wins. Pair them with a mouth-watering photo and keep the caption light; food posts perform best with warmth and humor. Try: “Good food is a love letter you get to eat.”
Why do food quotes resonate with so many people?
Food is universal. Everyone eats, everyone has food memories, and food is tied to love, family, and celebration. A good food quote taps into all of that in a single line.
What is a famous quote about food?
Many beloved food lines come from chefs and writers who treated cooking as an art — the idea that food is love, memory, and culture on a plate. Our collection mixes those classics with fresh original lines like “Cooking is love made visible, one dish at a time.”
Can food quotes be used for restaurant marketing?
Definitely. Restaurants use food quotes on menus, social posts, and wall art to create atmosphere. Choose lines that match your vibe — cozy, playful, or gourmet.
What do food quotes usually say about life?
They use food as a metaphor for joy, patience, and togetherness — savoring moments, sharing generously, and appreciating simple pleasures. The best ones remind us to slow down and taste life.
How can I write my own food quotes?
Start with a real food memory — a smell, a taste, a person at the table. Describe the feeling, not just the dish. The emotion is what makes a food line stick.
If these food quotes made you hungry, my work here is done. Food has a way of bringing us together — around tables, over recipes, through the simple joy of a meal made with love.
Bookmark this page for your next dinner party toast or foodie caption. And if one of these lines made you think of your favorite cooking buddy, share it — good food and good quotes are both better shared.
Craving more? Check out our comfort quotes for cozy comfort words and our life quotes for quotes that celebrate life’s tastiest moments.