Anthony Bourdain’s Best Quotes About Food, Life and Travel

By Ellis Clopton

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Renown travel writer, television host, and chef Anthony Bourdain has died .

Outside of traveling around the world for his show “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain was a prolific writer who frequently imparted his wisdom gathered from thousands of hours spent in kitchens across the planet. Below is a small collection of Bourdain’s thoughts on journeying, living, and dying.

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel — as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them — wherever you go.”
― from “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”

“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.”
― from “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
― from “No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach”

“That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.”
― from “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”

“But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.”
― from “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook”

“The word authentic has become a completely ridiculous, snobbish term. There are so many first- and second-generation immigrants making wonderful mashups of food they grew up eating. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that every time Guy Fieri puts barbecue pork inside a nori roll, an angel dies.”
― from an interview with Time magazine.

“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― from “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”

“Assume the worst. About everybody. But don’t let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.”
― from “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”

“[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.”
― from “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly”

“I’ll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I’m not going anywhere. I hope. It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
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