Quote

When I was writing 'Kitchen Confidential,' I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

Anthony Bourdain

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anthony Bourdain
Age: 61 †
Born: 1956
Born: June 25
Died: 2018
Died: June 8
Chef
Cook
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Television Presenter
Television Producer
Traveler
Writer
New York City
New York
Anthony Michael Bourdain
Tony Bourdain
Tony Michael Bourdain
Anthony M. Bourdain
Tony M. Bourdain
Anthony Michael Tony Bourdain
Writing
Owned
Years
Furniture
Never
Kitchen
Time
Car
Taxes
Paid
Behinds
Confidential
Behind
Rent

More quotes by Anthony Bourdain

Image
I'd love to play bass with Parliament Funkadelic, but I can't play bass, so I don't think that's going to happen.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
The Italians seem to have a better attitude with kids and the food is great!
Anthony Bourdain
Image
What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?
Anthony Bourdain
Image
People everywhere have been very, very good to me, whether I'm with or without cameras.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
On one hand we encourage and allow major pharmaceutical companies to openly hook vast sectors of our population on narcotics, and then we cut them off and throw them in jail, and moralize about it. It is clearly a huge, huge, and growing problem. It's devastating. We need to treat it as a health crisis, which it is, and stop moralizing.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
I write quickly with a sense of urgency. I don't edit myself out of existence, meaning I'll try to write 50 or 60 pages before I start rereading, revising and editing. That just helps with my confidence.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
If you're training in a combat sport, deliciousness takes a backseat.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night. Seeing two guys who'd just as soon cut each other's throats in their off hours moving in unison with grace and ease can be as uplifting as any chemical stimulant or organized religion.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
I don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
Margarine? That's not food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I can. If you're planning on using margarine in anything, you can stop reading now, because I won't be able to help you.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
I listen a lot to how people speak. I've read a great many good books in my life. I had some excellent English teachers. Surely, those things were helpful.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
I'm not looking to freak people out - eating rodents or bugs. I don't do that anymore.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
Norman Mailer described the desire to be cool as a decision to encourage the psychopath in oneself, to explore that domain of experience where security is boredom and therefore sickness and one exists in the present, in that enormous present which is without past or future, memory or planned intention.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody's done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
Look, getting bullied in school and coming home crying in the rain and my mom making me a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup with some oysterettes. It was comfort food that is what food should be.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
As I see it, fast food outfits have targeted small children with their advertising in a very effective way. You know, it's clowns and kid's toys and bright colors and things like that.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you've been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you've got Type 2 Diabetes... It's in bad taste if nothing else.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
When you're shooting that fast end to end, you wake up in a hotel and you don't know where you are. You're dreaming of Singapore, you wake up in Hong Kong. Or you just lose track. It's one of the reasons I'm staying in hotels that I know I've stayed in before, and they don't look like other hotels.
Anthony Bourdain
Image
Everything important I learned, I learned as a dishwasher.
Anthony Bourdain