I wasnt using college as a stepping stone to law school or some other career. I just wanted a liberal-arts education.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

Excellence is about fighting and pursuing something diligently, with a strict and determined approach to doing it right. It's okay if there are flaws in the process - it makes it more interesting.

You have to be critical of what you do every day, to analyze it and be willing to push it further.

I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.

The art of cooking is among the most intimate things that we can do for another.

Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit.

I’m all about making money. It’s the greatest thing, because it means you get money to spend.

Fernand Point's philosophy instilled what cuisine is all about: generosity and hugeness of heart.

My fantasy is to have a restaurant where there are no written menus, but where you just ask people, What are you in the mood for? Fish? Meat? White wine?

It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients.

Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

The true smoker abstains from imitating Vesuvius.

Higher taxes still does not create prosperity for all. And, more government still does not grow jobs.

There seems to be within all of us an innate yearning to be lifted momentarily out of our own lives into the realm of charm and make believe.

The idea of trying to create things that last-forever knowledge-has guided my work for a long time now.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity.

I'm a big fan of not letting the audience of off the hook, as they say. I like it when things feel real, and that's oftentimes not comfortable.

Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness

I think the artist's job throughout history has been to tell - to say things that people are inspired by.

Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth.