Mireille Guiliano Quotes & Sayings

Learn to say no, with an eye to saying yes to something else. — Mireille Guiliano

My friends say everything I touch turns to gold. I'll say, 'I've been very lucky.' — Mireille Guiliano

I'm not a great consumer. I always ask myself, 'Do I really need that piece?' I have friends who have 300 pairs of shoes; how would you leave the house in the morning? — Mireille Guiliano

Just as established products and brands need updating to stay alive and vibrant, you periodically need to refresh or reinvent yourself. — Mireille Guiliano

Women are smarter by basic instinct and by what we have to do to multitask at home and at work. My mother did that 50 years ago, but it wasn't called multitasking or stress back then. She had a job, two kids and the meals to make with no cook or maid. My father would come home every day and expect lunch. He was a nice guy, but he was clueless! — Mireille Guiliano

Taking care of your mental and physical health is just as important as any career move or responsibility. — Mireille Guiliano

Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present. — Mireille Guiliano

The memory of some bottles can stay with your for life. While the wine doesn't have to be old and rare, a great old bottle can be like a time capsule, capturing in its flavors and aromas the time and place of its creation. — Mireille Guiliano

You and I don't have the same genetics, we don't live in the same places, but we can have the same basic attitude - being comfortable in our skin. — Mireille Guiliano

I've never been ambitious. — Mireille Guiliano

Expose them {your kids} to the widest variety of vegetables and fruits, showing them how good things can be in season. Tasteless fruits and vegetables won't win them over for life. — Mireille Guiliano

We only have one body, and you have to show respect for it. — Mireille Guiliano

If my fellow Americans could adopt even a fraction of the French attitude about food and life (don't worry, you don't have to sign on to the politics, too), managing weight would cease to be a terror, an obsession, and reveal its true nature as part of the art of living. — Mireille Guiliano

We women are so judged by the way we dress, and men are not. So style is part of developing your own brand. — Mireille Guiliano

With technology, there is so much isolation with people now, that there are very few places where you can connect. — Mireille Guiliano

When I grew up in France, I was a normal size. And then I came to the United States and I gained 20 pounds. — Mireille Guiliano

Being and working in America, it's very important to work hard, work smart and work in a certain way. France and Europe has, with the tradition and culture, it's slow-moving and it's not always good. — Mireille Guiliano

Ever since that day in Chicago, whenever I see such scenes, I think of a quote by Billat-Savarin, the eighteenth-century 'modern' gastronome, well known for his writings and meditations on the physiology of taste and for his famous dictum 'We are what we eat.' But he also wrote even more revealingly: 'The destiny of a nation depends on how it feeds itself. — Mireille Guiliano

There is no lasting glory in rapid weight loss. — Mireille Guiliano

A meal that can be packed and frozen and thawed is nothing you should desire
much less teach your kids to want. — Mireille Guiliano

Dressing well was also a sign of respect, for yourself and for others. — Mireille Guiliano

One does not laugh because one is happy; one is happy because one laughs. — Mireille Guiliano

In France we have a saying, 'Joie de vivre,' which actually doesn't exist in the English language. It means looking at your life as something that is to be taken with great pleasure and enjoy it. — Mireille Guiliano

Making choices that are meaningful to you is the essence of the French woman's secret. — Mireille Guiliano

The word that I constantly hear out of women is 'fear.' It's almost like a background melody. Women have excellent degrees and experience, but we are afraid we aren't good enough because we have such high expectations. — Mireille Guiliano

Nothing but beauty and douceur — Mireille Guiliano

French women love to shop and prepare food. They love to talk about what they have bought and made. It's a deeply natural love, but one that is erased in many other cultures. Most French women learn it from their mothers, some from their fathers. But if your parents aren't French, you can still learn it yourself. — Mireille Guiliano

Developing a program that will serve you a lifetime is not an instant fix. Attitude shifts take much longer, but when they take, they tend to take for good. — Mireille Guiliano

Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors. — Mireille Guiliano

In America, you look at food as bad and guilty. In France, we love food and we enjoy food; food is pleasure. — Mireille Guiliano

French women eat and serve what's in season, for maximum flavor and value, and know availability does not equal quality. — Mireille Guiliano

I love my kitchen. For Manhattan, I have a rather decent-size kitchen, and it has an opening that gives out to the dining room, which has a window with a view of the city and in the distance the Statue of Liberty. — Mireille Guiliano

Intelligence, knowledge or experience are important and might get you a job, but strong communication skills are what will get you promoted. — Mireille Guiliano

I find it so unattractive when women wear sneakers with their business suits. I wear a nice pair of loafers or low-heeled pumps, and that's that. — Mireille Guiliano

You owe it to your loved ones as well as yourself to know and pursue your pleasures. — Mireille Guiliano

Wine is a living, breathing thing during its time in the bottle and in the glass. It is always changing, especially in the glass. A little oxygen can really open up and release the flavors in a complex wine, as well as mellow the rougher edge of immaturity. — Mireille Guiliano

For this reason, three months is the usual time to find your way. But you must enjoy the ride. — Mireille Guiliano

Of course there are fat French women. There are fat people everywhere. — Mireille Guiliano

Once a day, take some 'Beach Time.' — Mireille Guiliano

If you believe you can shed pounds quickly by force of will and deprivation, you will in all likelihood not only regain the ones you lost, but add a few more besides. — Mireille Guiliano

French women don't eat Wonder Bread. — Mireille Guiliano

I can never leave a bookstore without buying a book. I read four or five at a time. — Mireille Guiliano

We can't imagine anything more boring than to live with someone who doesn't care about food or eating or sharing meals. — Mireille Guiliano

French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat. — Mireille Guiliano

Scientifically, it has been proven that after three bites, your palate has been satisfied. It doesn't matter what you eat. So if you eat one boule of ice cream, that's all you need. You don't have to eat pint after pint after pint. — Mireille Guiliano

People are unhappy when they are on diets, because it's 'don't do this, don't do that, do this, do that.' — Mireille Guiliano

Gastronomic boredom leads to lots of unhealthy eating. If you don't make improvisation and experimentation part of your eating life, you are sure to find yourself in an eating rut. — Mireille Guiliano

In the U.S., too many yogurts are filled with corn syrup, preservatives, artificial this and that. To me, this is poison. — Mireille Guiliano

Quality of life is very important in France. I have many friends who turned down promotions and more money because it would affect their quality of life as a couple or a mother. — Mireille Guiliano

Give us being and feeling over having any day. — Mireille Guiliano

I would advocate that chocolate be covered by health insurance, but that is admittedly a very French public policy perspective. — Mireille Guiliano

~There are no recipes, only ingredients~ — Mireille Guiliano

Don't let a busy life or electronic communication gadgets be your excuse for excess solitude - it's a talent, but a rare one, to make yourself laugh. — Mireille Guiliano

Once you have to start counting calories, it takes away from the joy of eating. — Mireille Guiliano

French women don't have too many clothes - a few good pieces that last for a while and are classic and timeless. — Mireille Guiliano

French women love bread and would never consider a life without carbs. — Mireille Guiliano

~Garbage in, garbage out~ — Mireille Guiliano

I cannot live without flowers everywhere. I grew up having a big garden, the size of a city block, in Rombas. — Mireille Guiliano

Expensive clothes with inappropriate or inexpensive shoes may send an unflattering message. — Mireille Guiliano

~....value simplicity in all things, never serve any aperitif but Champagne. Hard liguor requires a bar, special paraphernalia, and a variety of glasses, as well as messy shaking or stirring. More important, it numbs more than it tickles the taste buds. When you've spent time and money preparing delicious food for your guests, the last thing you want is to render them unable to taste it. That will eliminate one of the most important topics of conversation!~ — Mireille Guiliano

French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne, and a divine perfume. — Mireille Guiliano

The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America. — Mireille Guiliano