Fork And Knife Quotes & Sayings

My fingers, which a second before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act. I didn't dare lick them. I wiped them guiltily on my napkin. He had no idea how deeply those words wounded me. They were like nails being driven into my flesh. I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste. — Yann Martel

As they say in Italy, Italians were eating with a knife and fork when the French were still eating each other. The Medici family had to bring their Tuscan cooks up there so they could make something edible. — Mario Batali

Never trust machinery more complicated than a knife and fork. — Robert A. Heinlein

What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I! — Charles Dickens

I will eat what I want and look as I please and laugh as loud as I like and use the wrong fork and lick my knife. — Marya Hornbacher

He wore clothes to cover his nakedness, he drove a car, and he ate with a knife and a fork and a linen napkin. He was gainfully employed in a job that required intellectual ability and acuity. He controlled his sexual urges through various civilized means and would never take a woman against her will. Nevertheless, as he stared at Miss Mitchell and Paul, he realized that he was an animal. Something primitive. Something feral. And something made him want to go over there and rip Paul's hands from his body and carry Miss Mitchell off. To kiss her senseless, move his lips to her neck, and claim her. — Sylvain Reynard

Eating grapes with a knife and fork is not what one would call refined. It is what one would call ludicrous. — Judith Martin

It is not elegant to gnaw Indian corn. The kernels should be scored with a knife, scraped off into the plate, and then eaten with a fork. Ladies should be particularly careful how they manage so ticklish a dainty, lest the exhibition rub off a little desirable romance. — Charlie Day

Kids today and for the last 20 years have held the fork and knife in unbelievable ways. They hold the fork with a fist and the knife like a saw and they shovel it in. It doesn't matter to them which way they hold their knife and fork. They eat every which way. I'm amazed they get food into their mouths at all. — Letitia Baldrige

Every week, when I change the sheets, I look at the half of the bed that has not been slept in, as pristine as the day the sheets were changed, and I wonder what happened to the possibilities of my youth. No one has ever slept in that bed but me, and I have only slept on one side of it. In the same chaste, deathlike position every night. All those years. All those years that have passed, in the utter silence of that apartment - silent except for the clink of a knife against a fork, the shutting of a cabinet door, the opening of an envelope. — Robert Goolrick

Vimes stared. It was true about the dogs. There didn't seem to be quite so many mooching around these days, and that was a fact. But he'd visited a few dwarf bars with Carrot, and knew that dwarfs would indeed eat dog, but only of they couldn't get rat. And ten thousand dwarfs eating continuously with knife, fork, and shovel wouldn't make a dent in Ankh-Morpork's rat population. It was a major feature in dwarvish letters back home: come on, everyone, and bring the ketchup. — Terry Pratchett

Scientists have determined that the most irritating sound to the human ear is the sound of a knife cutting a glass bottle. And the second-worst sound is a fork scratching a glass bottle. Evidently they did all their research at the Picnic for Morons. — Peter Sagal

If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death. — Sam Snead

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

Dougal eyed the breakfast repast. In addition to burnt toast, there was poorly trimmed ham, eggs that looked rubbery enough to bounce off the floor, pathetically dry scones, and small, smoking pieces of something he suspected had once been kippers.
Sophia noted Dougal's disgusted expression, and her heart lifted.
He looked amazingly handsome this morning, dressed in a pale blue riding coat and white shirt, his dark blond hair curling over his collar, his green eyes glinting as he began to fill his plate. Two scones, a scoop of eggs, and a large piece of blackened ham all went onto his plate.
Sophia had eaten earlier in the kitchen with Mary, who had served warm muffins with cream and marmalade, some lovely bacon, and crusty toast, complemented by a pot of hot tea.
Sophia hid a smile as Dougal attempted to cut his ham. Too tough for his blade, it tore into uneven pieces under his knife. He lifted a piece and regarded it on the tines of his fork. — Karen Hawkins

I remember watching steak being cooked on TV and wanting to try it. As a special treat, my mother cooked it for me, and I thought this would be the time I would eat with a knife and fork. Alas, I ate it with chopsticks! — Nobu Matsuhisa

I'm supposed to eat shit with a fork and a knife and say thank you when I'm done swallowing this crap? — Brandi Glanville

What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork. — Irene Nemirovsky

A fit encomium for marital bliss," Beaumont said, putting down his knife and fork. "Dancing to a tune one neither likes nor understands, with a partner who thinks you a cadaver. — Eloisa James

Don't trust the cannibal just 'cos he's usin' a knife and fork! — Terry Pratchett

I hoisted the lid off the Spode vegetable dish and, from the depths of its hand-painted butterflies and raspberries, spooned out a generous helping of peas. Using my knife as a ruler and my fork as a prod, I marshaled the peas so that they formed meticulous rows and columns across my plate: rank upon rank of little green spheres, spaced with a precision that would have delighted the heart of the most exacting Swiss watchmaker. Then, beginning at the bottom left, I speared the first pea with my fork and ate it. — Alan Bradley

Now," Clary said. "I don't want to wait. Do you?"
He didn't reply, just got up off the floor and picked his shirt. He looked at Clary, and almost smiled. "If we're going to the Silent City, you might want to get dressed. I mean, I appreciate the bra-and-panties look, but I don't know if the Silent Brothers will. There are only a few of them left, and I don't want them to die of excitement."
Clary got up off the bed and threw a pillow at him, mostly out of relief. She reached for her clothes and began to pull her shirt on. Just before it went over her head, she caught sight of the knife lying on the bedspread, gleaming like a fork of silvery flame. — Cassandra Clare

I see a girl caught in the remains of a holiday gone bad, with her flesh picked off day after day as the carcass dries out. The knife and fork are abviously middle-class sensibilities. The palm tree is a nice touch. A broken dream,perhaps? Plastic honeymoon, deserted island? Oh, If you put in a slice of pumpkin pie, it could be a desserted island! (Pg 64) — Laurie Halse Anderson

Can you suggest any suitable aspersions to spread abroad about Mrs. Thatcher? It is idle to suggest she has unnatural relations with Mrs. Barbara Castle; what is needed is something socially lower: that she eats asparagus with knife and fork, or serves instant mash potatoes. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

He is quiet and small, he is black
From his ears to the tip of his tail;
He can creep through the tiniest crack
He can walk on the narrowest rail.
He can pick any card from a pack,
He is equally cunning with dice;
He is always deceiving you into believing
That he's only hunting for mice.
He can play any trick with a cork
Or a spoon and a bit of fish-paste;
If you look for a knife or a fork
And you think it is merely misplaced -
You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn!
But you'll find it next week lying out on the lawn.
And we all say: OH!
Well I never!
Was there ever
A Cat so clever
As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees! — T. S. Eliot

He toasted his bacon on a fork and caught the drops of fat on his bread; then he put the rasher on his thick slice of bread, and cut off chunks with a clasp-knife, poured his tea into his saucer, and was happy. — D.H. Lawrence

It doesn't take much to get me in a sweat over someone -- a wink of vulnerability, a twitch, anything, from a choice of cufflinks to how they hold their knife and fork, almost always one wee thing about them that you'll find utterly overwhelming, and suddenly your day dreams are crowded with these folk who, on first look, seem completely unremarkable, or shitty, or savage but who're in fact full of light. What I understand now, lying here dying, is that that nonjudgmental quality I have is maybe the greatest gift of all. — Luke Sutherland

Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork? — Stanislaw Lem

Father banged the table with his fist really hard so that the plates and his knife and fork jumped around and my ham jumped sideways so that it touched the broccoli so I couldn't eat the ham or the broccoli any more. — Christopher

Reading and writing, arithmetic and grammar do not constitute education, any more than a knife, fork and spoon constitute a dinner. — John Lubbock

Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon.
For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away. — Eve Merriam

Here's a quick translation: spork = a spoon with added tines; splayd = a knife, fork, and spoon in one, consisting of a tined spoon with a sharpened edge; knork = a fork with the cutting power of a knife; spife = a spoon with a knife on the end (an example would be the plastic green kiwi spoons sold in kitchenware shops); sporf = an all-purpose term for any hybrid of spoon, fork, and knife. — Bee Wilson

Enter my first neighbor - a woman who spoke in complete, coherent sentences, who ate with a knife and fork and who only cried at weddings. I couldn't help myself. In a dramatic gesture, I bolted the door and threw my body across it to prevent her exit. She understood. — Erma Bombeck

To appreciate the importance of fitting every human soul for independent action, think for a moment of the immeasurable solitude of self. We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us; we leave it alone under circumstances peculiar to ourselves ... We ask for the complete development of every indicidual, first, for his own benefit and happiness. In fitting out an army we give each soldier his own knapsack, arms, powder, his blanket, cup, knife, fork, and spoon. We provide alike for all their individual necessities, then each man bears his own burden. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

And all this business about what knife and fork you eat from, it's a deliberate puzzle set out to make a simple bloke like me feel like a stranger. Whatever you pick up isn't going to change what the food tastes like, but Effie presses my knee hard if I gets it wrong. — Terry Pratchett

In the late nineteenth century, many educated Indians were taught the same lesson by their British masters. One famous anecdote tells of an ambitious Indian who mastered the intricacies of the English language, took lessons in Western-style dance, and even became accustomed to eating with a knife and fork. Equipped with his new manners, he travelled to England, studied law at University College London, and became a qualified barrister. Yet this young man of law, bedecked in suit and tie, was thrown off a train in the British colony of South Africa for insisting on travelling first class instead of settling for third class, where 'coloured' men like him were supposed to ride. His name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. — Yuval Noah Harari

You're the shape-changer aren't you?" he said. "Magnus Bane told me about you. No mark on you at all, they say."
Tessa swallowed and looked him straight in the eye. They were discordantly human eyes, ordinary in his extraordinary face. "No. No mark."
He grinned around his fork. "I do suppose they've looked everywhere?"
"I'm sure Will's tryed," said Jessamine in a bored tone. Tessa's silverware clattered to the plate. Jessamine, who had been mashing her peas to the side of the plate with her knife, looked out when Charlotte let out an aghast, "Jessamine! — Cassandra Clare

He narrowed his eyes at me, pushed out of the booth and stomped over to the cash desk where Ash had returned and was playing a game on his mobile phone.

"Sorry, sir," he echoed, dead-pan, and then added: "She is the owner."

He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "And she's righ' crazy, so I wouldn't mess with her. She stabbed someone with a plastic fork just last week."

"A--a plastic fork?" the man said, looking over at me nervously.

"Yeah, and you would not believe the mess. A carving knife woulda made cleaner work of it."

The man slapped a few coins on the counter near the cash and, clutching the remains of his paper, dashed out the door.

"Thanks, Ash," I said, absently.

"No probs," he said. "Chasing zombies on my phone--fair inspirational, aye? — K.C. Dyer

He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city Detroit or South-Central LA. But unusual for Germany. Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives moves in. From someplace where they don't really know how to use a knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched and blinking. A tough situation to manage. He — Lee Child

He put the fork, knife, and spoon back in his pocket and tucked the flower behind his ear, then walked to the door, reaching it right before that butler did. He gave the man a glare - it was only a matter of time before he cracked and tried to kill them all - then pulled open the door.
( ... )
"Nice flower," the kandra said. "Can I have your skeleton when you're dead?"
"My ... " Wayne felt at his head.
"You're a Bloodmaker, correct? Can heal yourself? Bloodmaker bones tend to be particularly interesting, as your time spent weak and sickly creates oddities in your joints and bones that can be quite distinctive. I'd love to have your skeleton. If you don't mind."
Taken aback by this request, Wayne stopped in place. Then he ran past him, pushing into the room where Wax and Steris were talking. "Wax," he complained, pointing, "the immortal bloke is being creepy again. — Brandon Sanderson

Shit. I was stuck. I suspected Dick would skip the hassle of having to ferry me back and forth to talk to someone and instead convince my mom to toss me into a mental ward where I could stay out of his hair and he'd have her all to himself. I imagined myself wearing institutional pajamas and having to eat everything with a spoon because no one would trust me with a fork or knife. Most likely my roommate would be some freakish, giant-size woman who didn't speak because she'd chewed off her own tongue. — Eileen Cook

A werewolf who fights with sword and dagger," he said, "is as unnatural as a dog who eats with a fork and a knife. — Cassandra Clare

PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk. — Ambrose Bierce

Keep your mouth shut around me," he says, his voice low, "or I will do this again, only next time, I'll shove it right through your esophagus."
"That's enough," Evelyn says. Edward drops the fork and releases Peter. Then he walks across the room and sits next to the person who called him "Eddie" a moment before.
"I don't know if you know this," Tobias says, "but Edward is a little unstable."
"I'm getting that," I say.
"That Drew guy, who helped Peter perform that butter-knife maneuver," Tobias says. "Apparently when he got kicked out of Dauntless, he tried to join the same group of factionless Edward was a part of. Notice that you haven't seen Drew anywhere."
"Did Edward kill him?" I say.
"Nearly," Tobias says. "Evidently that's why that other transfer--Myra, I think her name was?--left Edward. Too gentle to bear it. — Veronica Roth

Give your kids a bloody knife and fork and let me put some fresh food in front of them they can eat. — Jamie Oliver

At least, you two have decent manners," says Effie as we're finishing the main course. "The pair last year ate everything with their hands like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion."
... My mother taught Prim and me to eat properly, so yes, I can handle a fork and knife. But I hate Effie Trinket's comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my fingers. Then I wipe my hands on the tablecloth. This makes her purse her lips tightly together. — Suzanne Collins

A PICNIC IS NOT AN ADVENTURE!
Excuse me, but at thirty-eight and over six foot, trying to sit cross-legged on the ground to eat a meal is a total adventure. Have you ever attempted to eat with a plastic knife and fork, off a paper plate, while balancing the plate on your knee? And in company? That's an adventure. I tried to cut into my pork pie and the knife broke, then my Scotch egg rolled off the plate and into some mud. What does one do in that situation? Wipe off the mud, and eat it anyway? Risky. I peeled off the meaty outside and ate the boiled egg. Result. And, once, on the beach, I sat down with fish and chips (not strictly a picnic, but still hardcore al fresco eating) and a seagull swooped down and took the whole fish from my box! It was terrifying. So don't you go telling me that picnics aren't an adventure, thanking you muchly. — Miranda Hart

If this is the end of the world, give me a fork and a knife. — Dana Goodyear

I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of self-destruction ... — Charles Dickens

To be able to serve and to eat a whole fish, especially a trout, is part of civilized dining. This applies particularly to the young, who should take to it as soon as they can handle knife and fork; this is a fine way for them to begin taking pride in themselves and their abilities. — Julia Child

I'm still not certain on the nature of the spork, whether it is a fork and a spoon, or a fork and a knife mixed together, or maybe a fork and a fork on top. Life is full of mysteries yeah man — Thom Yorke

I'm just me. If I am sexy, it's just something I do naturally, like picking up a knife and fork to eat. I think people who try to be sexy are the most unsexy people in the world. — Sharon Tate

The First Book: Go ahead, it won't bite. Well ... maybe a little. More a nip, like. A tingle. It's pleasurable, really. You see, it keeps on opening. You may fall in. Sure, it's hard to get started; remember learning to use knife and fork? Dig in: you'll never reach bottom. It's not like it's the end of the world
just the world as you think you know it. — Rita Dove

Withers received these directions with becoming deference, and gave his guarantee for their execution; but when he withdrew a pace or two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking strangely at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr. Dombey, who couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help nodding her bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon her plate in using them, as if she were playing castanets. — Charles Dickens

When I was little, my mother taught me how to use a fork and knife. The trouble is that Mother forget to teach me how to stop using them! — Hattie McDaniel

There should be more booing in shops and restaurants and places like that when when the service is bad. If you've had a poor breakfast in a hotel, you should put your knife and fork down and boo. — Jenny Eclair

Anna took a knife and fork in her beautiful, white, ring-adorned hands and began to demonstrate. She obviously could see that her explanation could not make anything understood, but, knowing that her speech was pleasant and her hands were beautiful, she went on explaining. — Leo Tolstoy

A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our conveniences, as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us by monopolies out of the use of the things we have. — Thomas Jefferson

Playing without the fundamentals is like eating without a knife and fork. You make a mess. — Dick Williams

There are major CEOs who do not know how to hold a knife and fork properly, but I don't worry about that as much as the lack of kindness. — Letitia Baldrige

I'm probably borderline OCD. I insist on having all objects at right angles to each other. So a fork has to be at a right angle to the knife on the table. The salt and pepper pots have to be placed close together. Only recently have I started to notice it's a weird way to behave. — Laura Haddock

I see now that there is a great deal in what Aunt Almeria says. She considers that there are terrible pitfalls in Society."
Sir Richard shook his head sadly. "Alas, too true!"
"And vice," said Pen awfully. "Profligacy, and extravagance, you know."
"I know."
She picked up her knife and fork again. "It must be very exciting," she said enviously. — Georgette Heyer

I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife ... as if I'm lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That's why I'm not allowed a knife. — Margaret Atwood

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