You don't come into cooking to get rich.

Put your head down and work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself through hard graft and not giving up.

I don't like looking back. I'm always constantly looking forward. I'm not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I'm too busy looking for the next cow.

Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we're alive it's not going to change. You've got to be boisterous to get results.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it, game over.

Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

Push your limit to the absolute extreme.

We are most happy when we are most focused on serving God together.

Don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.

Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as Alicia Scott.

There's a difference between racism and "I don't know any better. I'm clueless." Racism is like, "I'm trying to make you feel bad." That's racism.

Really, what I'm always drawn to is the voice - PJ Harvey , Björk . If the voice interests me, then I'm interested to listen to what's happening.

More organizations die of indigestion than starvation

A huge constituency, such as Hispanics, is not 100 percent Democratic.

Writing a book is the most difficult, anxiety-prone aspect of my life because the words that I put on paper are very serious to me.

I long for the day my sisters will rise, and occupy the sphere to which they are called by their high nature and destiny.

O, Winter! Put away thy snowy pride; O, Spring! Neglect the cowslip and the bell; O, Summer! Throw thy pears and plums aside; O, Autumn! Bid the grape with poison swell.