Dinner Plate Quotes & Sayings

In my lame pescetarian defense, it's very hard to be a girl and say you won't eat something. Refuse one plate of bacon-wrapped pork rinds and you're anorexic. Accept them and you're on the Atkins. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and you're bulimic. Best to keep perfectly still and bring an IV of fluids with you to dinner. — Sloane Crosley

I think no matter what the occasion may be, you can never go wrong by showing up at the dinner table with a hot plate of fried chicken. — Paula Deen

Nicole's door opened, and she stomped down the hall. "I have something to say," she said, giving him the Slitty Eyes of Death. "You're totally unfair, and if I run away, you shouldn't be surprised." "Don't make me put a computer chip in your ear," Liam answered. "It's not funny! I hate you." "Well, I love you, even if you did ruin my life by turning into a teenager," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Did you study for your test?" "Yes." "Good." He looked at his daughter - so much like Emma, way too pretty. Why weren't there convent schools anymore? Or chastity belts? "Want some supper? I saved your plate." She rolled her eyes with all the melodrama a teenager could muster. "Fine. I may as well become a fat pig since I can't ever go on a date." "That's my girl," he said and, grinning, got up to heat up her dinner. — Kristan Higgins

Sometimes just a plate of noodles could be the best dinner ever with the person you love most. — Sujit Meher

One day, the people who work in my kitchen stir-fried chopped Napa cabbage to serve with some meat or fish for their own dinner. I got to thinking: 'What if the cabbage was the most important thing on the plate?' — Nobu Matsuhisa

If flatness were funny, a dinner plate would be hilarious. — Walter Moers

A large trencher made of bread was set on the table (one for every two people). One person sliced the trencher and kept half, and the other person used the second half as a plate. Plates are not found in England until the very end of the fourteenth century. Dinner began with a blessing from the chaplain followed by a procession led from the unoccupied side of the lord's table by the steward who oversaw the staff. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak 'n Shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice was up to me, it would be Steak 'n Shake. If the pope was to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, "Your Holiness, have you tried the Chili Mac or the Chili 3-Ways?" A downstate Illinois boy loves the Steak 'n Shake as a Puerto Rican loves rice and beans, an Egyptian loves falafel, a Brit loves bangers and mash, a Finn loves reindeer jerky, and a Canadian loves doughnuts. This doesn't involve taste. It involves a deep-seated conviction that a food is right, has always been right, and always will be. — Roger Ebert

Perhaps it's one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world. Like a spode dinner plate. Or a single cell. Or, as daisy says, like a Jane Austen novel. When player and listener together know the route so well, the pleasure is in the deviation, the unexpected turn against the grain. To see a world in a grain of sand. So it is, Perowne tries to convince himself, with clipping an aneurysm: absorbing variation on an unchanging theme. — Ian McEwan

The four seasons in Australia consist of "fuck it's hot," "Can you believe how fucking hot it is?", "I won't be in today because it is too fucking hot" and "Yes, the dinner plate size spiders come inside to escape from the heat. That is a fucking whopper though. — David Thorne

One time she threw a dinner plate at his head and called him retarded. Then he held her down in the shower, calling her a hot-head. — Stylo Fantome

There was nothing like an extra helping of guilt to cool a man's blood.And it was guilt as much as the hot food and the glass of good wine that got Brian through the evening in the Grant kitchen. The size of it left little room for lust, considering.
There was Adelia Grant giving him a warm greeting as if he was welcome to swing in for dinner anytime he had the whim, and Travis getting out an extra plate himself-as if he waited on employees five days a week-and saying that there was plenty to go around as Brendon had other plans for dinner.
Before he knew it, he was sitting down, having food heaped in front of him and being asked how his day had been.And not in a way that expected a report.
He didn't know what to do about it. He liked these people, genuinely liked them. And there he was lusting after their daughter. An alley mutt after a registered purebred. — Nora Roberts

I deserve this shrimp. Born to people who clearly shouldn't have reproduced, I date my best friend and turn him gay, date another man who doesn't know he's gay, almost have dinner with a third man who's more interested in his reflection than me, and land on a yeti who turns out to be a millionaire playboy.

"I lost the man I thought of as a father, had my thirtieth birthday party minus any family, and now I'm being dissed in the gossip rags. I am only human and I can take no more, so, yes, I have consumed my body weight in wine and I plan on eating this whole goddamn plate of shrimp. — L.A. Fiore

When people have different ideas about which of these four modes of interacting applies to a current relationship, the result can range from blank incomprehension to acute discomfort or outright hostility. Think abut a dinner guest offering to pay the host for her meal, a person barking an order to a friend, or an employee helping himself to a shrimp off the boss' plate. Misunderstandings in which one person thinks of a transaction in terms of Equality Matching and another thinks in terms of Market Pricing are even more pervasive and can be even more dangerous. They tap into very different psychologies, one of them intuitive and universal, the other rarefied and learned, and clashes between them have been common in economic history. — Steven Pinker

I've been on every diet in the world. I've been on Slim-Fast. For breakfast you have a shake. For lunch, you have a shake. For dinner, you kill anyone with food on their plate. — Rosie O'Donnell

You deserve better. He pushed the plate in front of me, his part of the hamburger gone, but all the fries still on the plate.
Like a guy who would share his dinner with me and give me all the fries? A guy who broke rules so I could listen to my father talk to my therapist? A guy who gave me his jacket when I was cold? A guy who set me on fire with a simple touch? But Noah couldn't possibly want a girl like me. — Katie McGarry

We still have your watch.You can have it back tonight.All you need to do is sneak up after dinner, set the tower, and flee the country. Agreed?
Azalea burned with embarrassment as Bramble folded the napkin around the pencil and passed it to Lord Bradford with the rolls. Lord Bradford took it and unfolded it in his lap.His dark eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. Then he folded the napkin and placed it under his plate. Bramble's yellow-green eyes narrowed. — Heather Dixon

A young English couple was visiting with me one summer after I had been composting humanure for about six years. One evening, as dinner was being prepared, the couple suddenly understood the horrible reality of their situation: the food they were about to eat was recycled human shit. When this fact abruptly dawned upon them, it seemed to set off an instinctive alarm, possibly inherited directly from Queen Victoria. "We don't want to eat shit!" they informed me, rather distressed (that's an exact quote), as if in preparing dinner I had simply set a steaming turd on a plate in front of them with a knife, fork and napkin. — Joseph Jenkins

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. — Emile Zola

One time we were having dinner and some guy came by and took a potato off of Frank Sinatra's plate. And Frank said, "Hey pal, are you hungry?" The guy says, "yeah." Frank said, "Sit down." And he gave him his dinner. I thought for sure there was gonna be trouble from the guys surrounding Frank, but Frank says, "Jeez, relax, the man's hungry." — Joey Bishop

As we hoped, our kids began to learn Italian. One day Isaac sat down to dinner, looked at the plate of pasta we'd prepared, made a face, and said, "Che schifo!" a vulgar expression meaning "Gross!" We were so proud. — Douglas Preston

You think like a boxer and behave like a boxer, and you try to live your life that way, being in the gym all the time and being careful to push the plate away at the dinner table. You don't need dessert. When you're out having fun, you ask for agua instead of vodka. It's very important. — Holt McCallany

The poor thing had cowered away from the sides of the pan, blackened on top, and developed drying cracks. It was inedible, better suited to the construction supply trade than to a dinner plate. A few dozen more of these and some mortar and she'd have that wall she wanted around her terrace. — J.R. Ward

The lentil is perhaps the world's most versatile, indestructible food. One can eat the lentil unadorned; marry it off to its first cousin, the oafish "bulgur"; or attempt to drown it in harsh vinegar for a "vegan salad." But the lentil, alas, will always survive. Indeed, at the Packwood house, the tenacious little legume will forcibly resurrect, as free of anything resembling taste as ever, and insinuate its indefatigable, pelletlike self onto yet another dinner plate, expecting to be eaten. Again, and again, and again. — Beth Fantaskey

In the dark room she sits and in front of her is a plate and on the plate lies a black hunk of bread the size of a deck of cards. The bread has sawdust in it, and cardboard. She takes a knife and a fork, and cuts it slowly into four pieces. She eats one, chews it deliberately, pushes it with difficulty through her dry throat. eats another and another and finally the last one. She lingers especially on the last one. She knows after this piece is gone there will be no more food until tommorow morning. She wishes she could be strong enough to save half of the bread until dinner, but she isn't, she can't. When she looks up from her plate, her sister Dasha, is staring at her. Her plate is long empty.
" I wish Alexander was coming back" says Dasha. " He might have food for us"
I wish Alexander was coming back, thinks Tatiana. — Paullina Simons

Maybe physical intimacy isn't always about touching. Maybe it's also about being able to sit next to someone at dinner and not care if he takes something off your plate or reaches across you for the salt. Maybe it's about being able to sprawl out on the floor and read a book in the same room with someone who's grading papers and muttering about 'incompetent boobs who couldn't write a good paper if their lives depended on it.' Maybe it's about sharing the same space with another person and not going fucking crazy because you can't get away from them.

That's it, I guess: true intimacy is really just the run of the mill, day to day stuff that happens without thinking - thousands of simple, meaningless, comfortable ways you can be close to someone, never dreaming how shitty you'll feel when you wake up one morning with all of it gone. — Bart Yates

Broke my femur on a cruise with my wife in Italy. I'd walked back to my cabin after dinner with half a plate of spaghetti when I leaned in to open the door. Turns out it was already open, so I fell flat on my face like something from the Keystone Kops. — Art Donovan

Well, sometimes if I go out to dinner with my family, people will come up to me and put their hand across my plate for me to shake, sometimes when I have a bite of food in my mouth. I find this a bit disturbing. — Abdul Qadeer Khan

In addition to Linda and me, there's a brother, a strange little guy named Bradley, obsessed with his own cowboy boots. He paces areound and around the house, staring at his feet and humming the G. I. Joe song from the television commmercial. He is the ringleader of a neighborhood gang of tiny boys, four-year olds, who throw dirt and beat each other with sticks all day long. In the evenings he comes to dinner with an imaginnary friend named Charcoal.
'Charcoal really needs a bath', my mother says, spooning Spaghettios onto his plate. His hands are perfectly clean right up to the wrists and the center of his face is cleared so we can see what he looks like. The rest of him is dirt. — Jo Ann Beard

A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. "Much obliged," said he, pushing the plate aside; "I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills. — Brillat-Savarin

This new resolve gave her a sort of light-headed self-confidence: when she left the dinner-table she felt so easy and careless that she was surprised to see that the glass of champagne beside her plate was untouched. She felt as if all its sparkles were whirling through her. — Edith Wharton

His jewelry was custom designed for the very rich and tasteless, people who would find it necessary to buy hundred-thousand-dollar necklaces to wear to a thousand-dollar-a-plate charity dinner, and never grasp the irony. — Dean Koontz

Since that era the question "Do you have any food restrictions?" has become a part of the etiquette of a dinner invitation, and participants at conference dinners can now tick a box that will replace a plate of rubber chicken with a plate of sodden eggplant. — Steven Pinker

Most men's awareness doesn't extend past their dinner plates. — Scott Westerfeld

The meal began with pickled squid, oyster shooters, marinated anchovies, and scungilli salad. Then Rosalie set an enormous bowl of pasta con le vongole in front of Sal, who ladled it out, talking the entire time. The pasta was followed by huge platters of scampi, which we passed around. It was almost eleven when Rosalie set three enormous stuffed turbots on the table, and it was near midnight when she appeared with a plate of warm sugar-dusted sfinge.
"So our first taste of the New Year will be sweet," Sal whispered in my ear. — Ruth Reichl

Generally speaking, most of our vital, spontaneous, instinctual life gets shamed. Children are shamed for being too rambunctious, for wanting things and for laughing too loud. Much dysfunctional shame occurs at the dinner table. Children are forced to eat when they are not hungry. Sometimes children are forced to eat what they do not find appetizing. Being exiled to the dinner table until the plate is cleaned is not unusual in modern family life. The public humiliation of sitting at the dinner table all alone, often with siblings jeering, is a painful kind of exposure. — John Bradshaw

Richard's clenched hands fell to his sides. He turned and walked into the study, carrying his balls on a nine-carat-gold dinner plate. — Angela Marsons

She was bad at love. There were people in the world who were good at love and people who were bad at it. She was bad. She used to think she was good at love, that it was intimacy she was bad at. But you had to have both. Love without intimacy, she knew, was an unsung tune. It was all in your head. You said, "Listen to this!" but what you found yourself singing was a tangle, a nothing, a heap. It reminded her of a dinner party she had gone to once, where dessert was served on plates printed with French songs. After dinner everyone had had to sing their plate, but hers had still had whipped cream on it, and when it came her turn, she had garbled the notes and words, frantically pushing the whipped cream around with a fork so she could see the next measure. Oh, she was bad, bad like that, at love. — Lorrie Moore

Whether you are attending someone else's or holding your own dinner party, your main objective should be to lead guests away from the usual road of predictable behaviour and tedious conversation, and towards a shared voyage of epicurean delight.
In much the same way as caged animals in zoos are kept mentally healthy by being set mealtime tasks by their keepers, dinner guests will find their repast far more satisfying if it is presented as a challenge and an opportunity for self-expression. For example, instead of the dry old formula of a plate flanked by serried ranks of knives, forks and spoons, today's modern host should show a little more ingenuity when selecting eating utensils. The novelty of using a Black & Decker two-speed drill to sheer flakes of the roast beef or a 15-inch spanner to negotiate the foie gras, will firmly place your party in the minds of your guests as a night to remember. — Gustav Temple And Vic Darkwood

The real wages of potters are in the daily silent appreciations of each of their customers as they pour the morning tea from their teapot, or drink coffee from their mug, or eat dinner off their plate. To be this involved in the daily lives of people who appreciate and admire your work enough to buy it must bring deep reassurance. It is a kind of immortality you can enjoy while still living.
The same goes for the woodworker. You are part of the community. — Roger Deakin

It's not about being rich, but everyone back home has a pool. And I was a total water baby. My mom couldn't get me out - she'd put my dinner plate at the end of the pool, and I'd eat my meals in the water. — Margot Robbie

I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They're incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays. — Bobby Flay

I held out the plate. "We made dinner and I figured you might want some."

His brows rose in shock. "What did you put in it?"

I groaned. "What is it with everyone thinking I'm trying to kill you?"

He smirked and I looked away.

"Obviously, if I wanted to kill you, I would do it in a much more painful way than poisoned eggs," I continued with a soft smile. "So eat it or throw it away. I don't care. — R.S. Grey

Miss Sumner, are you all right?" Hamilton asked, pulling her from her thoughts. "Perfectly fine." Hamilton sent a pointed look to the crushed dinner roll in Eliza's hand. "Oh," Eliza said, relaxing her fingers and dropping the roll to her plate before she realized Mrs. Amherst was speaking to her once again. — Jen Turano

There was never any peace. There were never any quiet, family moments. They were always working. All of them, all the time. For some reason Michael saw an image of the sitting room at the house in Yorkshire. The TV was on, but there was no one watching it. The terrier was polishing off a plate of dinner that had been abandoned on the arm of the couch. That was the way their lives were. They hadn't sat down to a meal once since they arrived in Scotland. They were a dealer's yard, not a family. — Kate Thompson

After I read David Suzuki's book, I took salmon from my dinner plate and I buried it in the woods, hoping to assist the growth of a large tree. — Ned Hayes

Snow was a wreck at dinner.
Which I might have enjoyed if I wasn't so desperate for him to stay.
Everything on his plate seemed to confuse him, and he alternated between staring at his food miserably and vacuuming it up because he was clearly ravenous. — Rainbow Rowell

Hey, my spaghetti's moving!" cried Mr. Twit, poking around in it with his fork.
"It's a new kind," Mrs. Twit said, taking a mouthful from her own plate which of course had no worms. "It's called Squiggly Spaghetti. It's delicious. Eat it up while it's nice and hot. — Roald Dahl

His wise parent disapproved of this uncatly conduct; it indicated a certain lack of character, and no good would come of it. By her own example she tried to guide him. When dinner was served she gave the plate a haughty sniff and walked away, no matter how tempting the dish. That was the way it was done by any self-respecting feline. In a minute or two she returned and condescended to dine, but never with open enthusiasm. — Lilian Jackson Braun

Whatcha gonna do to this?
You may be older than me, but you're new to this.
Cause I been out there, queen of MC's,
When your man was walkin' round in mocknecks and Lee's.
While you were over here perpetratin' a fraud,
I was overseas on the charts with Boy George.
You're the beginner, Shante's the winner,
Havin' other competition for dinner.
Sit you on the table with a plate and cup,
Say grace ... and then eat your ass up. — Roxanne Shante

She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn't feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it's usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they'd really like to devour it, they don't have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn't feel proper. — Laura Esquivel

And of course Charlotte hasn't eaten a bit of dinner," Henry said, getting up. "I'll go see if Bridget can't make her up a plate of cold chicken. As for the rest of you-" He paused for a moment, as if he were about to give them an order-send them to bed, perhaps, or back to the library to do more research. The moment passed, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face. "Blast it, I can't remember what I was going to say," he announced, and vanished into the kitchen. — Cassandra Clare

I like to compare my mental stress capacity to a dinner plate. Most people have moderate amounts of stress in their life, like a nice balanced meal. The food represents different stresses that occur in our lives, past and present. — L.K. Elliott

She unwrapped the lamb chops from their white butcher paper and peeled a few potatoes and opened a can of peas. Her father came in with the newspaper under his arm and then swatted her on the hip with it as he went to the table to sit down. And then Jimmy came in still wearing his overcoat to say, "What's this? What's this?" And then told their father with his hands on his hips that George was taking "our miss here" out to dinner. And her father lowered the paper and smiled at her - his round, florid face and his sparse white hair which he no longer bothered to slick down with water or tonic, being mostly housebound and hardly out of his slippers all week long - and only began to pout a little, Jimmy too, when she set the plate of lamb chops and the mint jelly and the mashed potatoes and peas in their bowls on the table and then pulled off her apron and said, "I'm just going to take a shower." "Be sure to put it back," Jimmy said — Alice McDermott

If you do not have - right now - an FAL, M1, M1A, or HK91, then there is something you have chosen not to own for your freedom. If you do own such a rifle but cannot - right now - from offhand position hit a dinner plate at 100yds within 5 seconds on demand without fail, then there is a skill you have chosen not to earn for your freedom. If you are not a Rifleman - right now - then you have announced to the world that your commitment to liberty goes only just so far. If you will not spend a summer and the price of a used jetski to become a Rifleman - to become a deadly foe of tyranny - then you are just mouthing platitudes, treating liberty as a hobby and expecting brave men to do your fighting for you. If you're not a Rifleman - you're just a hobbyist. By choosing to move to a state where you can't become a Rifleman, a hobbyist is what you'll remain. — Boston T. Party

He extends a hand, larger than a dinner plate, and I have no choice but to shake it. I think I can feel my metacarpals shattering. Julian jumps to summon our waitress again, mostly to avoid shaking hands with this Goliath. "And a pitcher of mimosas, as soon as humanly possible. — Kristopher Jansma

Sunday, January 27, 1884.
There was another story in the paper a week or so since. A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat's plate. One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master's plate, the other on its own. — Beatrix Potter

All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. — Charles Dickens

Two nights later, she was out with some work friends at a blue-plate hipster joint near the L train when she spotted Doug. He had a heavy beard and wore overalls. She liked his eyes, the way they crinkled when he smiled. When he came up to the bar for another pitcher, she struck up a conversation. He told her he was a writer who avoided writing by hosting elaborate dinner parties. His apartment was full of obscure food prep machinery, vintage pasta rollers and a three-hundred-pound cappuccino machine he'd rebuilt screw by screw. — Noah Hawley

One of the French officers was horrified that at a dinner in Washington's tent, His Excellency served the meal not in a succession of courses like in civilization. Apparently Washington "gave, on the same plate, meat, vegetables, and salad." On the same plate? Were these Americans people or animals? — Sarah Vowell

I love simple foods as well as grand. Dinners that take a half-hour from skillet to plate are as important as a five-course dinner. A meal that can materialize in an hour and be presented with care, love and pride is something every busy person longs to be able to do. — Anna Pump