I need to smell its smells, to hear its sounds, to see food in a pot that simmers, bubbles, sizzles. I enjoy the physical involvement of stirring, turning, poking, mashing, scraping.

Cooking is an art, but you eat it too.

What people do with food is an act that reveals how they construe the world.

Not everyone in Italy may know how to cook, but nearly everyone knows how to eat. Eating in Italy is one more manifestation of the Italian's age-old gift of making art out of life.

The Italian comes to his table with the same open heart with which a child falls into his mother's arms, with the same easy feeling of being in the right place.

I don't cook 'concepts.' I use my head, but I cook from the heart, I cook for flavor.

And while other passions in your life may at some point begin to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.

[On cooking:] What you keep out is as significant as what you put in.

80% of Italian cooking is done in a sauté pan.

You can't start the change unless dare to be different.

Most people don't cry when they're upset or frightened, but rather when they're frustrated. Your frustration is understandable. You've been through a most trying time." -Hodge

I've got a happy marriage, which is the most important singular thing.

It's so much easier to measure life in experience points.

I believe all war to be wholly wrong.

National security is the fig leaf against freedom of information.

Calling upon my years of experience, I froze at the controls.

The planet is asleep and it's the fault of musicians who are untrue to themselves.

I like to keep my private stuff pretty vague.

I will take his secret to the grave, telling people I meet on the way.