Empty Plate Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes it's like you're a big pie settin' on the table, and everybody runs up and gets their piece of you. When it's over' the plate's empty. — Loretta Lynn

For Archie was an expert in dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman. — Annie Proulx

He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: The [believer] who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter
until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will by then have gone away to more interesting company. — Peter L. Berger

A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great. — Peter Schjeldahl

Eating The Bones
by Ellen Bass
The women in my family
strip the succulent
flesh from broiled chicken,
scrape the drumstick clean;
bite off the cartilage chew the gristle,
crush the porous swellings
at the ends of each slender baton.
With strong molars
they split the tibia, sucking out
the dense marrow.
They use up love, they swallow
every dark grain,
so at the end there's nothing left,
a scant pile of splinters
on the empty white plate. — Ellen Bass

Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.' But the reader's plate is full — Agatha Christie

It baffles me that people think that obliterating the past will save them from its consequences, as if throwing away the empty cake plate would help you lose weight. — Timothy B. Tyson

You can't know who you really are until you've tasted all the things life has to offer...otherwise you'll just be standing there with an empty plate and no stories to tell — Amber Mosby

Is this about Archer? Please don't tell me you're upset about us, because ... I mean, you're dead."
She floated closer to me, until she was right in my face. At first I thought she was going to spit ectoplasm on me or something, but then I saw her lips moving again. I wasn't an expert lip-reader, but she was close enough and speaking slowly enough that I was able to make out what she said. "I told you," her pale lips mouthed, "that I'd haunt your ass."
I stared at her mouth, horrified, as she smirked. And then,just like that, she was gone. The air near my face wafted sligtly, like someone had just opened a window.
"I don't need this!" I said to the empty room. "Seriously, plate? FULL."
But there was no reply. — Rachel Hawkins

She removed my empty plate, replaced it with a bowl containing a steaming slice of spotted dick with thick yellow custard drizzled all over it. — Neil Gaiman

The cafe was empty, but the cook was unscrewing the outlet plate above my seat. I took my book into the bathroom and read while he finished. When I emerged, the cook was gone and a woman was ready to sit in my seat.
- Excuse me, this is my table.
- Did you reserve it?
- Well, no, but it's my table.
- Did you actually sit here? There's nothing on the table and you have your coat on.
I stood there mutely. If this were an episode of Midsomer Murders she would surely be found strangled in a wild ravine behind an abandoned vicarage. — Patti Smith

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

WILL PUSHED HIS EMPTY PLATE AWAY AND LEANED BACK IN HIS chair, feeling that delightfully uncomfortable sensation that comes when you eat just a little too much of something really delicious. Lady Pauline smiled fondly at the young man. "Would you like extras, Will? There's plenty left." He patted his stomach, surprised to find that it seemed to actually feel tighter than normal, as if it were straining at his clothes from the inside. "Thank you, no, Pauline," he said. "I've already had seconds." "You've already had fourths," Halt commented. Will frowned at him, then turned back to Pauline, smiling at her. At least she didn't make disparaging comments the way her husband did. — John Flanagan

In my bachelor days, I had a small upright piano in my kitchen. It cost £10 from eBay plus £70 delivery. It was because I'd seen an old photo of Tom Waits - with dirty dishes, empty bottles, a hot plate, a coffee machine and a piano strewn with lyric sheets - and fallen in love with it. — Jamie Cullum

In the open sky above the hushed streets, the moon was a porcelain plate on a black table as I walked home. A breeze raised the collar of my jeans jacket as I sliced through the silvery silence, past unlit buildings and quivering trees and cars idle by the curb. The air felt like glass. I crossed empty corners under the mauve light of overhead lamps. — Andrew Cotto

The door closed behind her, and Ed just stood there - unable to connect with the present reality. It was as though he had been zapped by a stun gun of words, and the effect had made him momentarily immobile. A few minutes passed, and he broke free from the paralyzing shock. He walked into the bedroom that he and Laura had once shared. Now, like him, it was missing her presence. Pictures had been taken off of the dresser, the scented candles were gone, and her pillow was not on the bed. He walked over to the closet, opened it up, and found that her clothes, and shoes were also gone. He looked around the half empty room, and found himself venturing into a tormenting cycle of confusion. A livid syrup had just been poured out onto a panicked waffle that had been setting on a perturbed plate for several daunting months, and Ed suddenly found himself acquiring an unhealthy appetite for destruction. Tears began to fall down his face, and an inward storm began to rage. — Calvin W. Allison

Molly and Armitage ate in silence, while Case sawed shakily at his steak, reducing it to uneaten bite-sized fragments, which he pushed around in the rich sauce, finally abandoning the whole thing. 'Jesus,' Molly said, her own plate empty, 'gimme that. You know what this costs?' She took his plate. 'They gotta raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't vat stuff.' She forked a mouthful up and chewed. 'Not — William Gibson

Eventually, a Soviet general sat down in the empty seat next to Howley. Rank-conscious, the Russian visibly shuddered when he realized he was sitting next to someone of much lower position. 'I see you're a colonel,' he said through an interpreter. Howley looked up from his plate and grumbled, 'I see you're a general. Here, have some salami. — Andrei Cherny

So sometimes life puts a giant plate of steaming hot blueberry fucking pancakes on your table. It's still down to you whether to eat them or say, 'No, thanks.' You can walk away from shite or pancakes. Wait for the next course, see if something tastier comes along." "But it's better, you think, to seize the pancakes?" "Aye!" John raised his empty tumbler to the approaching waitress. "Carpe pancakes! — Avery Cockburn

Bloody dogs," Dad said, kicking indiscriminately under the table. He put his revolver next to his side-plate. Mum put her Uzi on an empty chair beside her. "Safety on?" Dad always asked. "Those things are liable to go off at the touch of a gnat's testicle. — Alexandra Fuller

We have to discard the past / and, as one builds / floor by floor, window by window, / and the building rises, / so do we keep shedding - first, broken tiles, / then proud doors ... and each new day / gleams / like an empty / plate. — Pablo Neruda

The first thing that struck you about Claire's plate was its vast emptiness. Of course I'm well aware that, in the better restaurants, quality takes precedence over quantity, but there are voids and then there are voids. The void here, that part of the plate on which no food at all was present, had clearly been raised to a matter of principle.
It was as though the empty plate was challenging you to say something about it, to go to the open kitchen and demand an explanation. 'You wouldn't even dare!' the plate said, and laughed in your face. — Herman Koch

The no-kiss rule starts when we're home and I've found you a class,' Sky said smugly. 'Read the small print.'
Zed folded his arms and pushed back his empty plate. 'She won't last. — Joss Stirling

Reward is a happy customer - and an empty plate. — Jacques Torres

The very common error of young or unconfident cooks is to keep putting more of their own personal ideology into a plate until there's so much noise that you really can't even hear a tune. You can say more in an empty space than you can in a crowded one. — Mario Batali

That's not a catalog!" Amelia's brother set aside his empty glass and plate to peer across the maplewood table. "Why the devil are you reading Debrett's Peerage?"

"It most certainly is a catalog," she replied, "and the most expedient one at my disposal. I've decided to take a husband. His name must be within these pages. — Erica Ridley

If I eat mindlessly while watching television, reading, or talking with someone else, I can go through an entire meal without tasting the food, without even noticing that I've been eating. The plate is empty but I didn't enjoy the food - I had all of the calories and little of the pleasure. — Dean Ornish

People give me money and I don't know why, my real collection plate is an empty cup held by a homeless guy. — Bo Burnham

Wait," I cleared my throat. "He eats the cows?"
"What else would he do with them?" Morgan put his empty brownie plate with the rest of the trash.
"I thought he had the cows because of his wife."
"He does."
"Then how can he eat them?"
"What do you think they were going to do with the first cow?"
"I don't know, I just thought, well ... I don't know what I thought, but it sure wasn't grinding them up and making burgers. That just seems wrong."
"Why?"
"They remind him of his wife."
"And she ran a restaurant. C'mon, Grant, this is real life, not a Hallmark movie. Man's gotta eat. — Adrienne Wilder