Top 160 Julia Child Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It’s doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.”

— Julia Child

2. “People who love to eat are always the best people.”

— Julia Child

3. “We should enjoy food and have fun. It is one of the simplest and nicest pleasures in life.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Fun Quotes

4. “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re right if you love to be with them all the time.”

— Julia Child

5. “Romance is the icing but love is the cake.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Romance Quotes

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

— Julia Child

7. “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”

— Julia Child

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

— Julia Child

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

— Julia Child

10. “With enough butter, anything is good.”

— Julia Child

11. “A house without a cat is like a day without sunshine, a pie without fromage, a dinner without wine.”

— Julia Child

12. “You must have discipline to have fun.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Fun Quotes

13. “Cooking is one failure after another, and that’s how you finally learn.”

— Julia Child

14. “Any disaster is a learning process.”

— Julia Child

15. “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Real Quotes

16. “It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about – enjoying things.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Fun Quotes

17. “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give.”

— Julia Child

18. “You have to do it and do it, until you get it right.”

— Julia Child

19. “There are reasons, and then there are excuses.”

— Julia Child

20. “Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.”

— Julia Child

21. “The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken.”

— Julia Child

22. “Dining with one’s friends and beloved family is certainly one of life’s primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal.”

— Julia Child

23. “No one’s more important than people.”

— Julia Child

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

— Julia Child

25. “Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.”

— Julia Child

26. “The main thing is to have a gutsy approach and use your head.”

— Julia Child

27. “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.”

— Julia Child

28. “When you flip anything, you really you just have to have the courage of your convictions.”

— Julia Child

29. “Never apologize for your cooking.”

— Julia Child

30. “I enjoy cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food I’m cooking.”

— Julia Child

31. “Life itself is the proper binge.”

— Julia Child

32. “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!”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Fun Quotes

33. “I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it – and, more important, I like to give it.”

— Julia Child

34. “It’s a shame to be caught up in something that doesn’t absolutely make you tremble with joy.”

— Julia Child

35. “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you?”

— Julia Child

36. “Of course I made many boo-boos. At first this broke my heart, but then I came to understand that learning how to fix one’s mistakes, or live with them, was an important part of becoming a cook.”

— Julia Child

37. “Forget the cheap white wine: go to beef and gin!”

— Julia Child

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

— Julia Child

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

— Julia Child

40. “I was a Republican until I got to New York and had to live on $18 a week. It was then that I became a Democrat.”

— Julia Child

Featured in: Quotes About New York

41. “You learn to cook so that you don’t have to be a slave to recipes. You get what’s in season and you know what to do with it.”

— Julia Child

42. “Personally, I don’t think pure vegetarianism is a healthy lifestyle. I’ve often wondered to myself: Does a vegetarian look forward to dinner, ever?”

— Julia Child

43. “Cooking may be a creative art, but it’s also a wonderful full-time hobby.”

— Julia Child

44. “Wine is one of the agreeable and essential ingredients of life.”

— Julia Child

45. “I think every woman should have a blowtorch.”

— Julia Child

46. “I never feel lonely in the kitchen. Food is very friendly.”

— Julia Child

47. “One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.”

— Julia Child

48. “I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”

— Julia Child

49. “We hit it off immediately, especially Helene, who was a ‘swallow-life-in-big-gulps’ kind of person.”

— Julia Child

50. “Many of the delicious soups you eat in French homes and little restaurants are made just this way, with a leek-and-potato base to which leftover vegetables or sauces and a few fresh items are added.”

— Julia Child