Elizabeth David quotes:

It isnt only fictional heroes to whom toast means home and comfort. It is related of the Duke of Wellington - I believe by Lord Ellesmere - that when he landed at Dover in 1814, after six years absence from England, the first order he gave at the Ship Inn was for an unlimited supply of buttered toast.

I don't copy recipes without trying them out. I don't reprint without trying them again.

I'm very interested in my new kitchen equipment shop. I've started it with two friends.

To eat figs off the tree in the very early morning, when they have been barely touched by the sun, is one of the exquisite pleasures of the Mediterranean.

Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of the fleeting moment.

Even more then long hours in the kitchen, fine meals require ingenious organization and experience which is a pleasure to acquire.

An awful lot of people think it's easy to lift recipes out.

The grotesque prudishness and archness with which garlic is treated in [England] has led to the superstition that rubbing the bowl with it before putting the salad in gives sufficient flavor. It rather depends whether you are going to eat the bowl or the salad.

Every day holds the possibility of a miracle.

Some sensible person once remarked that you spend the whole of your life either in your bed or in your shoes. Having done the best you can by shoes and bed, devote all the time and resources at your disposal to the building up of a fine kitchen. It will be, as it should be, the most comforting and comfortable room in the house.

Provence is a country to which I am always returning, next week, next year, any day now, as soon as I can get on a train.

Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love.

It is a very great mistake to suppose, as a few English cooks still do, that spaghetti and macaroni should be soaked in water before cooking.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

I would probably never have learned to cook.