Whether it's destiny or fate or whatever, I don't think I could do a French Laundry anywhere else.

A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.

This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well. But to be able to do that, you have to do it over and over again.

Success is measured by the memories you create.

It's not about perfection; it's about the joy of striving.

A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.

Respect for food is respect for life, for who we are and what we do.

For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.

You have to be driven. You have to be focused. You have to be aware.

Set goals that make your heart sing. Then achieving them is an experience of uplifting joy.

Sometimes, the only way to evolve is to open ourselves fully.

Words shall not be hidnor spells buriedmight shall not sink undergroundthough the mighty go.

Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

I tend to be rather inconsequential and trail off.

All I am I owe to my mother.

That impulse I think is a form of love. Poetry is something that comes to you, rather than your having to work out its form beforehand.

Compared with me, a tree is immortal.

The sight of him did something to me I've never quite been able to explain. He was more than tremendous speed and beauty of motion. He set me dreaming.