It's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of thing. When you turn 40, you have to run the marathon, while all the parts still work properly.

Pasta is the one food I can't live without. It's the food I eat to fuel my running.

Carbs - especially pasta - are the fuel my body needs to maintain an athletic lifestyle.

The pressure, the heat, the almost impossibly fast pace at which you need work - this is the reality of working in the culinary industry. This is what professional chefs do night after night.

I eat a lot of whole grains for breakfast, a lot of dried fruit. And my big thing is pasta. I do a lot of simple pasta, with great ingredients.

Working in a restaurant means being part of a family, albeit usually a slightly dysfunctional one. Nothing is accomplished independently.

The best pastas are cut with bronze dies that give them a rough texture and allow the sauce to cling.

At home, I make a large batch of tomato sauce and freeze it in meal-size portions in freezer bags.

Aside from hospitality and delicious food, our [restaurateurs'] job is to entertain people. Restaurants should make people feel special, excited and fulfilled.

Most people who open restaurants will fail, because they lack the fundamental understanding of restaurant math. Either they think they're superstar cooks or they think they're superstar hosts.

No matter what it is you are cooking, buy the best ingredients you can afford. I don't care if it's a simple salad or Beef Wellington. A quality product stands alone and won't need any dressing up.

Beautiful beginnings are often born from ugly endings.

If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.

Pity the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

There's been nobody who stays in more communication and listens to veterans more than I do.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

A tendency to exaggeration was a Roman trait.

That was one thing you found out when you were stoned, or wasted, or feverish: that the world was always turning and that only a healthy mind could block out the sickening whirl of it.

Silence is a giver; it gives some things to you! Noise is a taker; it takes some things from you! Seek for the silence!

I am so envious of my colleagues from 100 years ago who only sang new works, they hardly ever sang revivals.

People who work in distribution will be distributors all their life.