Ruth Reichl

People are so used to eating terrible pancakes, no matter how you mess up, they're going to be great. And if you make fresh orange juice, they'll be over the moon.

You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life.

To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done.

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.

I think that, in almost all human beings, there is buried a profound tribal instinct that makes us very susceptible to being aroused to patriotic fervour.

I cannot cook to save my life. I'm really frighteningly useless, when you get down to it.