Calvin Trillin Quotes

Canadians are very well behaved, they don’t throw their food.

I’ve written three books you could think of as memoirs.

I’ve always thought that parallel parking was my main talent.

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.

What interests me is what you might call vernacular writing, writing that connects you to a place.

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

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.

Health food makes me sick.

When it comes to rapacious 19th century capitalism, my family‘s hands are clean.

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

I do remember in high school I wanted to be a disc jockey.

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 don’t mind being interviewed on television or radio.

Being on a book tour is a lot easier than reporting.

When you’re writing, you are robbed of your delivery.

I never did very well in math – I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn’t meant my answers literally.

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.