Calvin Trillin

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

“I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still.”

“The food in such places is so tasteless because the members associate spices and garlic with just the sort of people they're trying to keep out.”

“When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.”

“I don't think I've ever read a food piece or a food book.”

“I don't cook. I don't know anything about food. I've never reviewed a restaurant.”

“Canadians are very well behaved, they don't throw their food.”

“I actually think of being funny as an odd turn of mind, like a mild disability, some weird way of looking at the world that you can't get rid of.”

“We all know funny people who can't get it down on the page - even funny writers who can't get it down on the page.”

“If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.”

“There's always a source for humor.”

“With humor, it's so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.”

“I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.”

“People, not just reporters, are more interested in politics than in government, so the actual issues wouldn't be something that interested them.”