Quotes from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Making choices that are meaningful to you is the essence of the French woman's secret.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“We can't imagine anything more boring than to live with someone who doesn't care about food or eating or sharing meals.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Learn to say no, with an eye to saying yes to something else.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Expose them {your kids} to the widest variety of vegetables and fruits, showing them how good things can be in season. Tasteless fruits and vegetables won't win them over for life.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“~....value simplicity in all things, never serve any aperitif but Champagne. Hard liguor requires a bar, special paraphernalia, and a variety of glasses, as well as messy shaking or stirring. More important, it numbs more than it tickles the taste buds. When you've spent time and money preparing delicious food for your guests, the last thing you want is to render them unable to taste it. That will eliminate one of the most important topics of conversation!~”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“~There are no recipes, only ingredients~”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“French women love bread and would never consider a life without carbs.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“French women eat and serve what's in season, for maximum flavor and value, and know availability does not equal quality.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“French women don't eat Wonder Bread.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“A meal that can be packed and frozen and thawed is nothing you should desire--much less teach your kids to want.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“You owe it to your loved ones as well as yourself to know and pursue your pleasures.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne, and a divine perfume.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“For this reason, three months is the usual time to find your way. But you must enjoy the ride.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“If my fellow Americans could adopt even a fraction of the French attitude about food and life (don't worry, you don't have to sign on to the politics, too), managing weight would cease to be a terror, an obsession, and reveal its true nature as part of the art of living.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Developing a program that will serve you a lifetime is not an instant fix. Attitude shifts take much longer, but when they take, they tend to take for good.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Gastronomic boredom leads to lots of unhealthy eating. If you don’t make improvisation and experimentation part of your eating life, you are sure to find yourself in an eating rut.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Give us being and feeling over having any day.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“On the whole, “offenders” are foods we tend to eat compulsively, with less actual pleasure than you might think. Often they are poor versions of something better.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Any program that your mind interprets as punishment is one your mind is bound to rebel against.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“I offer the wisdom of the great American gastronome M.F.K. Fisher, who in The Art of Eating wrote, “No yoga exercise, no meditation in a chapel filled with music will rid you of your blues better than the humble task of making your own bread.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Making choices that are meaningful to you is the essence of the French woman’s secret.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Don't let a busy life or electronic communication gadgets be your excuse for excess solitude - it's a talent, but a rare one, to make yourself laugh.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“For many, the twenties seem like the time of infinite possibility, although in retrospect a woman will almost always idealize her thirties.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince is a book all French people know well. It can be read in an hour but is packed with timeless wisdom.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“Tout est question d’équilibre (Everything is a matter of balance):”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“As the French know well, ritual is how we give meaning to different aspects of being alive, including the most elemental: birth, marriage, death, and through it all, until the end, eating.”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

“you must understand there is nothing noble in failing to discover and cultivate your pleasures. (It will make you not only fat, but grouchy.)”
― Mireille Guiliano, quote from French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

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“He had always believed that his father had not been able to save a penny from the business, at least his father had never told him anything to the contrary, and Gregor, for his part, had never asked him any questions. In those days Gregor's sole concern had been to do everything in his power to make the family forget as quickly as possible the business disaster which had plunged everyone into a state of total despair. And so he had begun to work with special ardor and had risen almost overnight from stock clerk to traveling salesman, which of course had opened up very different money-making possibilities, and in no time his successes on the job were transformed, by means of commissions, into hard cash that could be plunked down on the table at home in front of his astonished and delighted family. Those had been the wonderful times, and they had never returned, at least not with the same glory, although later on Gregor earned enough money to meet the expenses of the entire family and actually did so. They had just gotten used to it, the family as well as Gregor, the money was received with thanks and given with pleasure, but no special feeling of warmth went with it any more. ”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis

“Chronicler shook his head and Bast gave a frustrated sigh. "How about plays? Have you seen The Ghost and the Goosegirl or The Ha'penny King?"
Chronicler frowned. "Is that the one where the king sells his crown to an orphan boy?"
Bast nodded. "And the boy becomes a better king than the original. The goosegirl dresses like a countess and everyone is stunned by her grace and charm." He hesitated, struggling to find the words he wanted. "You see, there's a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be."
Chronicler relaxed a bit, sensing familiar ground. "That's basic psychology. You dress a beggar in fine clothes, people treat him like a noble, and he lives up to their expectations."
"That's only the smallest piece of it," Bast said. "The truth is deeper than that. It's..." Bast floundered for a moment. "It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story."
Frowning, Chronicler opened his mouth, but Bast held up a hand to stop him. "No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she's beautiful, she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding." Bast gave a grudging shrug. "And sometimes that's enough."
His eyes brightened. "But there's a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you..." Bast gestured excitedly. "Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Chronicler snapped. "You're just spouting nonsense now."
"I'm spouting too much sense for you to understand," Bast said testily. "But you're close enough to see my point.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, quote from The Name of the Wind

“We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.”
― Umberto Eco, quote from The Name of the Rose

“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, quote from The Scarlet Letter

“Say 'provoking' again. Your mouth looks provocative when you do.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, quote from Hush, Hush

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