Provence is a country to which I am always returning, next week, next year, any day now, as soon as I can get on a train.

Every day holds the possibility of a miracle.

To eat figs off the tree in the very early morning, when they have been barely touched by the sun, is one of the exquisite pleasures of the Mediterranean.

Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love.

Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of the fleeting moment.

Even more then long hours in the kitchen, fine meals require ingenious organization and experience which is a pleasure to acquire.

I don't copy recipes without trying them out. I don't reprint without trying them again.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

It is a very great mistake to suppose, as a few English cooks still do, that spaghetti and macaroni should be soaked in water before cooking.

I'm very interested in my new kitchen equipment shop. I've started it with two friends.

I would probably never have learned to cook.

Are your thoughts and beliefs elevating you to greater heights or blocking you from embracing your blessings?

Since I can't turn into a bat and fly, I'll still need my bus pass

As soon as the recovery is well under way, we need to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure we are not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation.

I don't think I was all that late in becoming a father.

All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction.

Compromise today is too often applauded simply for itself. The cost of compromise to principles and real lives doesn't seem to matter.

I encourage people to remember that "no" is a complete sentence.

There's the young Jon Voight and the old Jon Voight.

God didn't give me the ability to play the piano, or paint a picture or have compassion. But... he did give me the ability to crack a walnut with my hoo-ha.

I do love the prose poem because it's such a perverse and provocative little box - always asking to be questioned, never giving a straight or definitive answer.