"The ocean of adversity cannot drown the spirit that resolves to stay afloat. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds."

"It is a enduring truth that vision without execution is fantasy; execution without vision is chaos."

"The river of time washes away kings and empires, leaving only virtue intact. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"The only limit to human potential is the pursuit of truth is a lifelong endeavor."

"The kitchen's a laboratory, and everything that happens there has to do with science. It's biology, chemistry, physics. Yes, there's history. Yes, there's artistry. Yes, to all of that. But what happened there, what actually happens to the food is all science."

"Facts are to the mind what food is to the body."

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."

"I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table."