My mom, who's been in the restaurant business for 40 years, is the number-one influence in my life. But I look up to a lot of people in the industry. Tops on my list is Mario Batali. My mom and Mario taught me the same lesson: Food is love.

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.

Niccolo Machiavelli

If you're doing an interview, you need conversational tension. After you talk to them, you're not going to have a relationship with them, they're not going to like you, they're not going to be your friend.

Chuck Klosterman

The first sin in our universe was Lucifer's self conceit.

Thomas Carlyle

The dog is the god of frolic.

Henry Ward Beecher

The most disastrous phenomenon of the current situation is the factor that imperialism is employing for its own ends all the powers of the proletariat, all of its institutions and weapons, which its fighting vanguard has created for its war of liberation.

Clara Zetkin

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be a valuable person. You become valuable because of the knowledge that you have. And that doesn't mean you won't fail sometimes. The important thing is to keep trying.

Benjamin Carson

A lot of people do not muster the courage to live their dreams because they are afraid to die.

Les Brown

I think in general, romantic comedies tend to take one person's point of view, but every once in a while you get something that is balanced for two people.

Sandra Bullock

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Even without wars, life is dangerous.

Anne Sexton

For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.

Pierre de Coubertin

Through mutual understanding, sincerity and goodwill, and with great wisdom and broad views, the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace, stability, cooperation and mutual benefit.

Chen Shui-bian