“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, quote from My Life in France
“...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“...nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“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.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,' [Chef Bugnard] said. 'Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“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.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“But I was a pure romantic, and only operating with half my burners turned on.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook...," or "Poor little me...," or "This may taste awful...," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" 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, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile -- and learn from her mistakes.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“She was my first cat ever, and I thought she was marvelous. ”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“...the waiters carried themselves with a quiet joy, as if their entire mission in life was to make their customers feel comfortable and well tended.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“We ate the lunch with painful politeness and avoided discussing its taste. I made sure not to apologize for it. This was a rule of mine.
I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make...
Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is vile,...then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile- and learn from her mistakes.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you “sir” and “madam,” and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of “what is done” and “what is not done,” and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters. (Paul Child)”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“...operational proof...it's all theory until you see for yourself whether or not something works.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“We are so bemused by our own petard, that we are unable to look at things objectively.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“When I wasn't at school, I was experimenting at home, and became a bit of a Mad Scientist. I did hours of research on mayonnaise, for instance, and though no one else seemed to care about it, I thought it was utterly fascinating....By the end of my research, I believe, I had written more on the subject of mayonnaise than anyone in history.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Was it a sign of Creeping Decrepitude?”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“Standing up through the Citroen's open sunroof, my six-foot-three-inch, red-cheeked sister pointed a long, trembling finger at the perpetrator and with maximum indignation yelled: 'Ce merde-monsieur a justement crache dans ma derriere!' Her intended meaning is obvious, but what she said was, 'This shit-man just spat out into my butt!”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“...The more I learned the more I realized how very much one has to know before one is in-the-know at all.”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
“If variety is the spice of life, then my life must be one of the spiciest you ever heard of. A curry of a life. -Paul Child”
― Julia Child, quote from My Life in France
Julia Child
Born place: in Pasadena, California, The United States
Born date August 15, 1912
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“You will see. There are boundaries—there always are. But you can find your place within them. Learn how to live within a fence but let your spirit soar.”
― Roseanna M. White, quote from The Lost Heiress
“You can’t just read these books and think that means you’re living. It’s their story, not yours, and it’s heartbreaking to watch someone so young toss away their chance at writing their own story.”
― Brittainy C. Cherry, quote from The Silent Waters
“on my right Baker Creek has cut a steep-banked gash into the badlands to the west.”
― Barry López, quote from Arctic Dreams
“Nadia, if all women were to wear paint on their faces, just think, there could be no more natural selection. The inevitable result would be the uglification of the species. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
― Marina Lewycka, quote from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
“There on the landing sits the typewriter. It is clogged with dust, the ribbon dried and flimsy. Looking at it gives Felix a feeling close to vertigo. He realises he can replicate in his head the exact sound it used to make. The clac-clac-a-clac of the metal letters hitting the paper, the ribbon raising itself each time to make the impression. The machine-gun fire of it, when the work was going well. The stops and pauses when it wasn't, to allow for a sigh, a draw on a cigarette. The ding every time the carriage reached its limit. The whirr as the page was snatched out, then the rolling ratcheting as a new one was wound in.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine
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A Great ReckoningBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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