Calvin Trillin Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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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!”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Many Texas barbecue fanatics have a strong belief in the beneficial properties of accumulated grease.”
-- 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.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Every good idea sooner or later degenerates into hard work.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Getting a tattoo would probably make me cry.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Avoid restaurants with names that are improbable descriptions, such as the Purple Goose, the Blue Kangaroo or the Quilted Orangutan.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“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.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Sometimes, if I had until the next day to turn the story in, I'd head home, finding that the knot in the narrative came loose with the rhythmic clacking of the subway train.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“How did Italy manage to end up with no Caribbean islands at all? Christopher Columbus took the trouble to discover the Caribbean personally before the end of the fifteenth century. Try to get a decent plate of spaghetti there now.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Was the Buffalo chicken wing invented when Teressa Bellissimo thought of splitting it in half and deep frying it and serving it with celery and blue-cheese dressing? Was it invented when John Young started using mambo sauce and thought of elevating wings into a specialty?”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“The way I read Billy Carter's testimony, he was a model citizen himself until the voters went and ruined his life by making his brother President.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“One advantage of a monarchy is that a monarchy does not suffer the effects of having great clots of white Christians moping around simply because they aren't the king or queen.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“I suppose it's possible that the Sundance Kid didn't like to make much of his birthdays — they may have struck him as just another reminder that his draw was getting slower by the year—but what if he truly liked a major celebration? What if he looked forward every year to marking the day of his birth with what they used to call in the West 'a real wingding, with pink balloons and a few survivors'?”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“The average trade book has a shelf life of between milk and yogurt, except for books by any member of the Irving Wallace family - they have preservatives.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Once, in Lisbon, I tried my best to work the phone book in a way that would assuage a longing [Alice and I] had for certain Chinese dishes . . . .”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Taking pleasure in the dark side may be some sort of occupational hazard for reporters.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“The ceiling on taxation of capital gains reflects the national belief that speculation is a more worthwhile way to make a living than work.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“At American weddings, the quality of the food is in inverse proportion to the social position of the bride and groom.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“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.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“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.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“If law school is so hard to get through... how come there are so many lawyers?”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“Following the Romanian tradition, garlic is used in excess to keep the vampires away.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“When it comes to rapacious 19th century capitalism, my family's hands are clean.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“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.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“I've written three books you could think of as memoirs.”
-- Calvin Trillin -
“I don't think I've ever read a food piece or a food book.”
-- Calvin Trillin