Ahmir Trotter Quotes

I've always been a little crazy. ~ Charlie Trotter

The air of caricature never fails to show itself in the products of reason applied relentlessly and without correction. The observation of clinical facts would seem to be a pursuit of the physician as harmless as it is indispensable. [But] it seemed irresistibly rational to certain minds that diseases should be as fully classifiable as are beetles and butterflies. This doctrine ... bore perhaps its richest fruit in the hands of Boissier de Sauvauges. In his Nosologia Methodica published in 1768 ... this Linnaeus of the bedside grouped diseases into ten classes, 295 genera, and 2400 species. ~ Wilfred Trotter

The Pension Dressler stood in a side street and had, at first glance, the air rather of a farm than of a hotel. Frau Dressler's pig, tethered by one hind trotter to the jamb of the front door, roamed the yard and disputed the kitchen scraps with the poultry. He was a prodigious beast. Frau Dressler's guests prodded him appreciatively on the way to the dining-room, speculating on how soon he would be ripe for killing. The milch-goat was allowed a narrower radius; those who kept strictly to the causeway were safe, but she never reconciled herself to this limitation and, day in, day out, essayed a series of meteoric onslaughts on the passers-by, ending, at the end of her rope, with a jerk which would have been death to an animal of any other species. One day the rope would break; she knew it, and so did Frau Dressler's guests. ~ Evelyn Waugh

I remember being a teenager and being ashamed of my musical tastes, at least some of them. My Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fandom, which is as important to me as anything else, was almost like a porn stash. Hide that shit, someone's coming! You couldn't look like me and be black in West Philadelphia and love the Beach Boys the way I did. ~ Ahmir Questlove Thompson

No one aspires to be the working man. Everyone aspires to be The Man. ~ Ahmir Questlove Thompson

Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR FARM from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted ANIMAL FARM. This was to be the name of the farm from now onwards. ~ George Orwell

That weekend my people brought home
a big eared gray scrawny kit.
He was so loud and annoying
that I did not like him one bit. ~ Melinda K. Trotter

On the steps leading to a door
was a scrub brush that was blue.
I snatched it quick and ran for home
because it was just the thing to chew. ~ Melinda K. Trotter

Cooking is exactly like making music. ~ Charlie Trotter

Kaylee giggled as he tunneled up inside her sleeve.
Out popped his head for a quick look, then he took leave.
He enjoyed scaling up, down and around her shirt.
What a sweet, funny and adorable flirt. ~ Melinda K. Trotter

I took the obligatory economics classes in school, but I've long been a fan of the Milton Friedman philosophy and its libertarian bent: One must be free to do what one wants to do, as long as you don't harm another. This is the seminal treatise on free-market economics. ~ Charlie Trotter

My friends back home call me a warrior. In fact I'm a butterfly-faced warrior. ~ DeeDee Trotter

If people give me a year or two of their best effort, then I am their friend for life. ~ Charlie Trotter

I'm a big believer in the Christian faith. I don't push it on anyone, though. ~ Steve Trotter

The first [quality] to be named must always be the power of attention, of giving one's whole mind to the patient without the interposition of anything of oneself. It sounds simple but only the very greatest doctors ever fully attain it ... The second thing to be striven for is intuition. This sounds an impossibility, for who can control that small quiet monitor? But intuition is only interference from experience stored and not actively recalled ... The last aptitude I shall mention that must be attained by the good physician is that of handling the sick man's mind. ~ Wilfred Trotter

If you want the meaning of families and life and religion and philosophy rolled into one package, all you need to read is 'The Brothers Karamazov.' ~ Charlie Trotter

If you go around the kitchen and ask my employees what they want to be doing in three to five years, most of them, if they're being honest, will tell you that they don't want to be working for me. They want to have their own place. And I think that's great. ~ Charlie Trotter

I got on a Dostoyevsky kick right after college. I started with 'Crime and Punishment,' went on to 'The Possessed' and then 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Idiot.' ~ Charlie Trotter

Dammit, Trotter. Don't try to make a stinking Christian out of me. ~ Katherine Paterson

Excellence is about fighting and pursuing something diligently, with a strict and determined approach to doing it right. It's okay if there are flaws in the process - it makes it more interesting. ~ Charlie Trotter

I would always be embarrassed to read out loud in class because I would transpose words and letters and things. ~ Charlie Trotter

But as someone famous (it was either Winston Churchill or Rocky Balboa) once said, 'Being brave ain't about not being punched, it's about being punched but continuing to come back to get punched over and over again'. ~ Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter

I back away from negativity - there's too much in this world, and I don't want to be around it. ~ Steve Trotter

At home, a man is entitled to raise his voice maybe once a year, if something really gets under his skin. At work, it's different. I raise my voice all the time. Not out of malice, but to get things right. It's never personal. ~ Charlie Trotter

The body cannot produce enzymes in perfect combinations to metabolize your foods as completely as the food enzymes created by nature do. This results in partially digested fats, proteins, and starches that can clog your body's intestinal tract and arteries. ~ Charlie Trotter

All four elements were happening in equal measure - the cuisine, the wine, the service, and the overall ambience. It taught me that dining could happen at a spiritual level. ~ Charlie Trotter

I met Charlie Trotter before I actually saw him in person; I was 24 when I first opened the pages of Charlie's cookbook 'Charlie Trotter's' and was greeted by a man I would know and admire for the next 20 years. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

Ultimately, I want to prepare food that will be recognized equally in Tokyo, London, and Paris. I am after that universality, that transcendence. ~ Charlie Trotter

When I really like something, I tend to never listen to it again. I want to remember the feeling even more than I want to remember the music. If you get that record back out, you risk learning that it's not as good in reality as it is inside of you. Better to have the memory than to go back and have to adjust your truth. And even if it is every bit as good, you're just going to deconstruct it. You're going to use your brain instead of your feelings. As you get older, feelings are hard to come by. - Richard Nichols ~ Ahmir Questlove Thompson

Someone once said that blues and gospel were fraternal twins, close in spirit, neither one wanting to admit how similar they looked. ~ Ahmir Questlove Thompson

It is sometimes asserted that a surgical operation is or should be a work of art ... fit to rank with those of the painter or sculptor ... That proposition does not admit of discussion. It is a product of the intellectual innocence which I think we surgeons may fairly claim to possess, and which is happily not inconsistent with a quite adequate worldly wisdom. ~ Wilfred Trotter

I believe in focusing on details. ~ Charlie Trotter

There has been no great surprise, no sudden revelation. I knew pretty much what I was getting into. What I've learned is that a restaurant can be as much of an art as you want it to be, but it has to be a successful business first. ~ Charlie Trotter

The second thing to be striven for is intuition. This sounds an impossibility, for who can control that small quiet monitor? But intuition is only interference from experience stored and not actively recalled. ~ Wilfred Trotter

It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients. ~ Charlie Trotter

Take the very hardest thing in your life - the place of difficulty, outward or inward, and expect God to triumph gloriously in that very spot. Just there He can bring your soul into blossom. ~ Lilias Trotter

You know the old adage that the customer's always right? Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. ~ Charlie Trotter

Always make stock in a large quantity and freeze it in plastic bags. That way, when you want to make a nice soup or boil veggies, you can simply pull the bag out of the freezer. ~ Charlie Trotter