Top 200 Anthony Bourdain Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “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

152. “What most people don’t get about professional-level cooking is that it is not all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavours and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking – the real business of preparing the food you eat – is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.”

— Anthony Bourdain

153. “We are, after all, citizens of the world – a world filled with bacteria, some friendly, some not so friendly. 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 McDonald’s?”

— Anthony Bourdain

154. “I eat strategically. If I know I’m having a big Chinese banquet tomorrow, I’m not eating a big dinner tonight, and I’m not having breakfast.”

— Anthony Bourdain

155. “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

156. “Fully feeling the effects of the sake, I was seriously considering burning my passport, trading my jeans and leather jacket for a dirty seersucker suit and disappearing into the exotic East.”

— Anthony Bourdain

157. “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

158. “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to.”

— Anthony Bourdain

159. “Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.”

— Anthony Bourdain

160. “A mama’s boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times crossword puzzle – to which he was hopelessly addicted.”

— Anthony Bourdain

161. “You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy.”

— Anthony Bourdain

162. “They’re professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don’t forget that the Russians – any Russian – can drink you under the table.”

— Anthony Bourdain

163. “Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.”

— Anthony Bourdain

164. “Shepherd’s pie’? ‘Chili special’? Sounds like leftovers to me. How about swordfish? I like it fine. But my seafood purveyor, when he goes out to dinner, won’t eat it. He’s seen too many of those 3-foot-long parasitic worms that riddle the fish’s flesh.”

— Anthony Bourdain

165. “And I’ve long believed that good food, good eating is all about risk.”

— Anthony Bourdain

166. “I’m a guy who should not have a lot of free time. But when it comes to vacation, I like to pull the plug completely. It’s all about my daughter – I’m no longer the star of my own movie.”

— Anthony Bourdain

167. “Critics have a responsibility to put things in a cultural and sociological or political context. That is important.”

— Anthony Bourdain

168. “Be a fool. For love. For yourself. What you think MIGHT possibly make you happy – even for a little while – whatever the cost or good sense might dictate.”

— Anthony Bourdain

169. “We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.”

— Anthony Bourdain

170. “I write quickly with a sense of urgency. I don’t edit myself out of existence, meaning I’ll try to write 50 or 60 pages before I start rereading, revising and editing. That just helps with my confidence.”

— Anthony Bourdain

171. “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

172. “We are, after all, citizens of the world – a world filled with bacteria, some friendly, some not so friendly. 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 McDonald’s? 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.”

— Anthony Bourdain

173. “Bigfoot understood – as I came to understand – that character is far more important than skills or employment history.”

— Anthony Bourdain

174. “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

175. “Who can really describe why they fell in love?”

— Anthony Bourdain

176. “John F. Kennedy said something truly terrifying – guaranteed to make every parent’s blood run cold: “To have a child is to give fate a hostage.”

— Anthony Bourdain

177. “I talk about these mysterious forces all the time with my chef cronies. Nothing illustrates them more than the Last Meal Game. You’re getting into the electric chair tomorrow morning. They’re gonna strap you down, turn up the juice and fry your ass until your eyes sizzle and pop like McNuggets. You’ve got one meal left. What are you having for dinner? When playing this game with chefs – and we’re talking good chefs here- the answers are invariable simple ones.”

— Anthony Bourdain

178. “As well, there’s the age-old syndrome common to fans of musicians with passionate and discerning cult followings. When the objects of adulation are crass enough to become popular, they quickly become a case of “used to be good.”

— Anthony Bourdain

179. “Food, it appeared, could be important. It could be an event. It had secrets.”

— Anthony Bourdain

180. “The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef’s recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.”

— Anthony Bourdain

181. “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

182. “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. The.”

— Anthony Bourdain

183. “There is nothing cool about “used to be cool.”

— Anthony Bourdain

184. “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

185. “I can’t imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department than bargain sushi.”

— Anthony Bourdain

186. “I know how old most seafood is on Monday – about four to five days old!”

— Anthony Bourdain

187. “I could eat bloody Elvis – if you put enough vinegar on him.”

— Anthony Bourdain

188. “When I cook, I generally stick with what I know, what I’m comfortable with, and what I feel I’ve paid my dues learning, and am good at.”

— Anthony Bourdain

189. “I think it’s a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things.”

— Anthony Bourdain

190. “At the base of my right forefinger is an inch-and-a-half diagonal callus, yellowish-brown in color, where the heels of all the knives I’ve ever owned have rested, the skin softened by constant immersion in water. It distinguishes me immediately as a cook, as someone who’s been on the job a long time. You can feel it when I shake my hand, just as I feel it on others of my profession. It’s a secret sign, a sort of Masonic handshake without the silliness.”

— Anthony Bourdain

191. “The life of the cook was a life of adventure, looting, pillaging and rock-and-rolling through life with a carefree disregard for all conventional morality. It looked pretty damn good to me on the other side of the line.”

— Anthony Bourdain

192. “I can’t do exercises regularly because my schedule changes from day to day. I’m okay with hurting myself, like I’ll lift something until it hurts, but I don’t want to pass out or vomit in front of people.”

— Anthony Bourdain

193. “Toast your goddamn muffins.”

— Anthony Bourdain

194. “I remember it well, because it was such a slap in the face. It was a wake-up call that food could be important, a challenge to my natural belligerence. By being denied, a door opened.”

— Anthony Bourdain

195. “So I didn’t have time to craft artful lies and evasions even if I’d wanted to.”

— Anthony Bourdain

196. “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

197. “Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard have given us a deep and important look at the people, places and cuisine that are reshaping what we want for dinner. Koreatown thrills with flavors that will change your life.”

— Anthony Bourdain

198. “Whatever had the most shock value became my meal of choice.”

— Anthony Bourdain

199. “This book is about street-level cooking and its practitioners. Line cooks are the heroes.”

— Anthony Bourdain

200. “Frightened people become angry people – as history teaches us again and again.”

— Anthony Bourdain