"I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still."
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Quote collection
Calvin Trillin quotes (page 1 of 5)
94 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Many Texas barbecue fanatics have a strong belief in the beneficial properties of accumulated grease."
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"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."
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"The shelf life of the average trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt."
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"As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler."
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"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."
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"In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while his article is still on the presses."
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"Perhaps we've time to have a look at the Number Thirty-One bus queue before we turn in."
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"Following the Rumanian tradition, garlic is used in excess to keep the vampires away... Following the Jewish tradition, a dispenser of schmaltz (liquid chicken fat) is kept on the table to give the vampires heartburn if they get through the garlic defense."
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"I'm in favor of liberalizing immigration because of the effect it would have on restaurants. I'd let just about everybody in except the English."
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"Every good idea sooner or later degenerates into hard work."
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"Did you know that five out of three people have trouble with fractions."
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"I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally."
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"When helicopters were snatching people from the grounds of the American embassy compound during the panic of the final Vietcong push into Saigon, I was sitting in front of the television set shouting, Get the chefs! Get the chefs!"
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"Math was always my bad subject. I couldn't convince my teachers that many of my answers were meant ironically."
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"I like chili, but not enough to discuss it with someone from Texas."
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"Avoid restaurants with names that are improbable descriptions, such as the Purple Goose, the Blue Kangaroo or the Quilted Orangutan."
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"When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him."
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"Given the clientele, the restaurants on Capri might resemble those fancy Northern Italian places on the East Side of Manhattan where the captain has taken bilingual sneering lessons from the maitre d' at the French joint down the street and the waiter, whose father was born in Palermo, would deny under torture that tomato sauce has ever touched his lips."
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"Since nostaglia is fueled by inflation, could it be that inflation is the result of a conspiracy by the people who are trying to palm off McGovern buttons and Howdy Doody puppets and their Aunt Thelma's toaster as antiques."
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