Padma Quotes & Sayings

Hearing doctors tell you that you can't get pregnant does not extinguish the hope. — Padma Lakshmi

Every country I would go to, even if it was just on a modeling job, I would go to their markets. If I went to Morocco for 'Elle' magazine, I would be in the spice markets during my off time and just come back with a suitcase full of stuff that I really wanted to try. — Padma Lakshmi

She had always thought of her life as a series of submissions to God. What if she has been making her own decisions all along? — Padma Viswanathan

She is a pebble skipping
over the surface of a lake.
As I once was.
Not a deep sinking stone that leaves widening ripples behind
after it's disappeared.
As I hope to be. — Padma Venkatraman

Well look, it seems as though you do have some experience now at least of threefold bliss, luminosity, and emptiness that is such an important feature of the first yoga. On top of that, you are in an excellent position, having had introduction from myself and having all the things on your side that you have going for you. But look out! Your mind is probably not strong enough yet that you can go wandering into town, as a lot of yogi-types would, drinking liquor and womanizing, and trying to incorporate that into your practice. Instead, and until you have advanced far enough that you can actually take these things onto the path, you should be practicising!

- Gampopa to Phagmo Drupa

(Duff T. Gampopa Teaches Essence Mahamudra: Interviews with His Heart Disciples, Dusum Khyenpa and Others. Padma Karpo Translation Committee, 2012. Pp. xxviii-xxix) — Tony Duff

I don't have any stigma attached to my body. When I'm in my own private space, I have very little on. — Padma Lakshmi

I feel the American's eyes on me, looking as though I'm more than an amputee, a number, a chore. He crosses over to me, his strides large, a broad smile on his lips. "Veda? Did I say your name right?" "Yes, Doctor." "Call me Jim. Please." His left hand in his pocket, he holds his right hand out to me. As though we're equals. "Thank you, Doctor - I mean - just Jim," I say. He chuckles. "Haven't done anything yet." He has. No older man ever invited me to shake hands. No other adult ever asked me to call them by name. He even said "please" although I'm a patient. — Padma Venkatraman

The van lurches forward. My thoughts race back. — Padma Venkatraman

I'm not of the American ilk that, you know, your lover needs to be your best friend and know you inside out. I think he should know you well enough to please you. Otherwise, what secret will there be to tell him when you're ninety? — Padma Lakshmi

The cookbooks and the writing in general have been a real bonus, but it's not something I've ever pursued ... I've been lucky, I guess. — Padma Lakshmi

It is, after all, that old process which Katherine Mansfield once described as 'going out and looking at a tree and coming back plus the tree. — Padma Hejmadi

She raised her hand, bony fingers spread. "Don't worry. She is supposed to cry. Her life will never be the same. You can't give her everything."

I realized what Rajima meant. Until that moment, I had been almost exclusively providing everything Krishna could want or need. I was her sole succor and haven. But her needs were changing. She would now need sustenance from the earth, from Mother Nature, from the world, or at least Whole Foods. She would need more than what I could give her from my own body. We — Padma Lakshmi

The men on the show have it easy, in part because men on TV have uniforms: There's the jacket, in black, blue, or gray. There's the shirt, the pants. I can never tell whether Tom is gaining or losing weight beneath his boxy suits. He always looks the same. Tom also has the benefit of being Tom, a decorated veteran of the restaurant kitchen. Like so many chefs, he is practiced at the taste-of-this, taste-of-that eating regimen. I'm the one who has to look like a glorified weathergirl, with formfitting dresses and all, which, don't get me wrong, I love - at least until I don't. — Padma Lakshmi

Where is it written that a smart woman can't also be stacked? — Padma Lakshmi

I've always had a fantasy to write a cookbook, because everyone wants to know what a model eats. — Padma Lakshmi

Like many immigrants, I had always kept my Eastern and Western lives compartmentalized. — Padma Lakshmi

I have a great career, and I have my daughter. Sio what I don't have is not as important to as what I do have. — Padma Lakshmi

Perhaps terror and peace became the same thing when life's mysteries were unveiled. In the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna reveals his divine form at Arjuna's request, Arjuna is terrified at seeing what no mortal can stand to see. But the end to human doubt surely must also bring with it a definite, final peace. — Padma Viswanathan

Maybe that old adage about not being able to have a good apartment, a good relationship, and a good job at the same time is true. — Padma Lakshmi

I don't really think any of us are women right when we turn eighteen, or even twenty-one for that matter. You have to live a little. I certainly tried to do that. — Padma Lakshmi

For a while, I became an atheist; now that I'm grown up, though, I'm not hard-edged enough to be an atheist. Even though I live with a flaming atheist, I love going to temple. I love all the rituals. — Padma Lakshmi

In southern Spain, they made me eat a bull's testicles. They were really garlicky, which I don't like. I prefer to take a bull by the horns, not by, um ... — Padma Lakshmi

The great thing about living today is that there is this thing called the Interweb, and you can just look up anything. — Padma Lakshmi

One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on 'Top Chef,' I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it's not working and why it would work if they did it a different way. — Padma Lakshmi

He was everything I wasn't. He was a lot of what I wanted to be. — Padma Lakshmi

I cannot remember what we talked about except that we never stopped talking. — Padma Lakshmi

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please. — Padma Lakshmi

But I had my wand hidden up my sleeve," he assured Padma Patil, ... [Ron revising the story in the 2nd task, of how he escaped the merpeople] ... "I could've taken those mer-idiots any time I wanted."
"What were you going to do, snore at them?" said Hermoine waspishly.
...
Ron's ears went red, and thereafter, he reverted to the bewitched sleep version of events. — J.K. Rowling

And then there come the tears, the pain, the letting go of things once held so dear, so comfortable, so much a part of who you thought you were, and what defined you. Identity weakens. Divine Love is yearned for, a new feeling. The healing begins. Sexuality starts to be explored consciously as a way to share and exchange energy, as a way to elevate and expand, as a way to heal and release, as a way to trigger and evolve, as a way to express a deeper love and connect more parts of yourself together, designed to lead towards the sacred. — Padma Aon Prakasha

Whether I'm making a recipe or a piece of jewelry or a white-rose-and-jasmine tea or the perfume, I like to think of myself as a happy little sorceress, and if I could just have a little general store with all that stuff and give people a sense of my taste, that would be lovely. — Padma Lakshmi

I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I've learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body. — Padma Lakshmi

I really like to sometimes go into food detox and eat very simply. — Padma Lakshmi

I am a sufferer of endometriosis. I didn't want any young women to go through what I went through. I thought that people should know about it. — Padma Lakshmi

When there is little you can do, you do what you can. — Padma Lakshmi

If a dog barks at the sun, it does not dim the sun's brightness. (44) — Padma Venkatraman

I am as omnivorous as it's possible to be. I always say there's nothing I won't eat and nothing I won't wear. — Padma Lakshmi

we eat for our stomachs, but we hunger with our hearts. — Padma Lakshmi

During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes. — Padma Lakshmi

the more brutal or austere the diet, the harder it is to keep. — Padma Lakshmi

My skin tingles as I step into the music,
give in to the icy thrill of pleasure
that spreads through me whenever I dance,
the pleasure of leaping into a cool lake on a
sweltering day. — Padma Venkatraman

Do not let us suppose that if we weep a great deal we have done everything that matters; let us also work hard and practise the virtues, for these are what we most need. Let the tears come when God is pleased to send them: we ourselves should make no efforts to induce them. They will leave this dry ground of ours well watered and will be of great help in producing fruit; but the less notice we take of them, the more they will do, because they are the water which comes from Heaven. When we ourselves draw water, we tire ourselves by digging for it, and the water we get is not the same; often we dig till we wear ourselves out without having discovered so much as a pool of water, still less a wellspring. — Padma Aon Prakasha

Flowers die and wine gets consumed. Both are lovely. I appreciate both. Wine and roses. I actually had someone bring me a lobe of foie gras once. — Padma Lakshmi

My hand slips into his as though it remembers his touch and we've held hands often in a previous life. — Padma Venkatraman

At the end of a marriage, no one wins. There is only anger, sorrow, guilt, emptiness, and defeat. — Padma Lakshmi

The library was my only blessing. Every time I climbed the stairs, my heart lifted. All day, I looked forward to the happy hours I spent in that beautiful room. My guilt over appa's fate was too heavy to carry up there, and I learned to leave it below, somewhere on the ground floor. I left the house far behind as I walked on the path paved by the books, and every evening, baby Mangalam slept soundly on the bed I made for her on the window seat. — Padma Venkatraman

I'm not attached to things at all. I'm very lucky to have quite a few beautiful things, but if I look back at my life, I was often happiest when I had very little. — Padma Lakshmi

She had so little control over her own life. Yet she took control, out of thin air for herself, when she could. I — Padma Lakshmi

Padma, My darling. I have told you countless times that all these rites and rituals are meaningless. I will show you what God is. Just Look into the eyes of your mother Padma, and what you see is God. Look into the heart of a noble man, and what you see is God. Look at the lotus feet of your teacher, and what you see is God. God, as we know, is just a manifestation of our innate insecurity and fear of mortality. I do bow down dutifully before all Gods, but I really do not expect much from anyone. As far as I am concerned, I am yet to see any God in this big, wide and cruel world, except in the eyes of my mother and in feet of my teachers. — Biju Vasudevan

And this charge plays out with partners, parents, friends, families and even our children. Many parents unconsciously 'use' their children so the parent can feel loved, important, special, and needed under the mask of being unconditionally loving to their children. The parent needs the child in order for the parent to feel love. This need is not love, simply another excuse for the parent to not feel their own lack and wound, and of course when the child acts up and does not meet their expectations, then the child receives harmful projections and verbal and physical abuse. — Padma Aon Prakasha

Beauty is no accomplishment on its own. It's what you do with it. — Padma Lakshmi

Whenever I'm in sync with the trends, it's always an accident. I still love wearing clothes I've had for ten years. I think understated luxury is the chicest thing. — Padma Lakshmi

My first taste memory is pickle. Even as a kid, I was really weird. I liked chillis. I used to climb up the shelves in my grandmother's pantry. The pickle jar was kept right at the top. One time, I dropped the jar and it broke. I was totally busted. — Padma Lakshmi

I want to tell the nurses no scale can measure
the pain of my dreams
dancing
beyond reach. — Padma Venkatraman

You don't need expensive classes and all kinds of weird equipment if you really want to be in shape. There are great ways to do it that are very economical, it just takes a time commitment, even if it means waking up a half hour a day before the rest of the household gets up because that's the only time you have. — Padma Lakshmi

But now I was home. In my home, home home, once and for all. I had had various apartments before in quite a few cities over the course of my life, but this was the first one I owned, and it felt good. A roof over my head and a place to be private, to cry, to laugh, to gorge, to hope, to dream, to wallow, and to pray for things was a salve to my soul. — Padma Lakshmi

Jewelry should not upstage you. I pick one hot point on my body that I'm going to highlight. Let one area do the singing - you don't want to hear three songs at once. — Padma Lakshmi

The heart knows no pain sharper than love's arrow. — Padma Lakshmi

The sound did not hide the void, but it filled it with a kind of light: nothing that would stop you from falling, but maybe stop you from being so afraid. — Padma Viswanathan

I like me better naked. I don't mean that in a vain way ... When you put clothes on, you immediately put a character on. Clothes are adjectives, they are indicators. When you don't have any clothes on, it's just you, raw, and you can't hide. — Padma Lakshmi

Because friendship is about laughing when the other person is joking to make you feel better. Even if you don't find her joke all that funny. — Padma Venkatraman

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise. — Padma Lakshmi

People always comment about my clothes. They don't think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook. — Padma Lakshmi

I never Tweet about my daughter. Never. I just want to be respectful of her privacy. My job as a mom is to know when to open my mouth and when not to. — Padma Lakshmi

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on 'Top Chef,' whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It's a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them. — Padma Lakshmi

She had sculpted the mist, the way those who have no choice do. She had willed a life for the two of us in a new land. — Padma Lakshmi

In the morning stillness, when the world is just waking up and your conscious mind hasn't fully taken over, you may feel a connection or passageway to another world, and a feeling that something is about to happen in yours. It's like a quiet storm is coming. You can feel the distant rumble of thunder on the horizon, yet you have no idea of the deluge your life is about to experience. — Padma Lakshmi

I'm not tough. I'm tenacious. — Padma Lakshmi

I can dance beauty into my body — Padma Venkatraman

I always loved my bangles, I can't remember a time when I didn't have a bangle on. — Padma Lakshmi

I think eating in itself is the act of great sensuality, so all you have to do is point the camera in the right direction. — Padma Lakshmi

I work out all the time! I don't just sit around and eat burgers whenever I want. Oh, if I could I probably would, but I don't. — Padma Lakshmi

In truth, I am a single mother. But I don't feel alone at all in parenting my daughter. Krishna has a whole other side of her family who loves her, too. And so Krishna is parented by me, but also by her grandmother and aunts and cousins and uncles and friends. — Padma Lakshmi

We can never know more than the mind can assimilate and process, nor can we discuss any aspect of the world for which there is no language. — Padma Viswanathan

Back then, eating was also a means of beautification, since the more aloo tikki and murukku you consumed, the more likely you'd reach a voluptuousness akin to an American size ten or twelve, required for looking good in a sari. — Padma Lakshmi

It feels like Shiva destroyed my universes of possibility, like He's dancing on the ashes of my snatched away dreams. — Padma Venkatraman

You don't want your jewelry to make you look fat. A lot of what's out there now does - you just wind up looking like a Christmas tree. — Padma Lakshmi

My aim is to communicate with the last man in the audience. Art minus communication is meaningless. The term 'abhinaya' is not just facial expressions. It means drawing the spectator to an idea. Look at the modern advertisements. It's contemporary abhinaya. But one who creates should know what has to be completely and what has to be suggestively portrayed. That is ethical aesthetics. The Natyasastra says a production must be such that a family should be able to watch it together. — Padma Subrahmanyam

I love seafood. I'm not a vegetarian but I'm probably a pescetarian. — Padma Lakshmi

Is he your only child? I asked, "my only son" padma said. "My condolences" I said ... Anita Blake — Laurell K. Hamilton

My grandfather was a closet feminist. So, — Padma Lakshmi

You don't have to climb ladders to reach God. He dances within all He creates. — Padma Venkatraman

How does the new leg feel?' I don't point out their question misses a point: even this new leg doesn't feel. — Padma Venkatraman

I always think, after the second glass of wine, you should be putting something in your stomach. — Padma Lakshmi

From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga, to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first, I came to associate food not only with feminity, but also with purity and divinity. — Padma Lakshmi

Every woman has a record of her body - a closet full of jeans and bras of various sizes, albums full of photographs revealing periods of weight gain and loss. — Padma Lakshmi

If you look at the people who make up the Bravo landscape from Jeff Lewis to Rachel Zoe and Padma Lakshmi and Tabatha Coffey and the 'Millionaire Matchmaker,' these are very strong personalities that people love to watch and that you ... don't see anywhere else. — Andy Cohen

The close proximity in which people lived in India was in stark contrast to my independent existence in America. — Padma Lakshmi

I think a great classic watch is the first staple every woman should invest in. — Padma Lakshmi

In my mind's eye, my chess pieces had grown into lines of dark-skinned men marching forward, being beaten by a white army and crumpling one by one into my father's waiting arms, bloodstains blossoming across their shoulders. (32) — Padma Venkatraman

I think wine is such a big universe that it's kind of like food - it's intimidating to a lot of people, myself included. — Padma Lakshmi

I was lucky to have a successful career as a model, but that was just a way to pay off my college loans. — Padma Lakshmi

One thing that happens when you're pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It's really like basting a turkey with body butter. — Padma Lakshmi

And so I was left with a mantra, a sort of haiku version of our relationship: I don't regret one day I spent with him, nor did I leave a moment too soon. — Padma Lakshmi

food has played a central role not only in my professional but also in my emotional life, in all of my dealings with loved ones and most of all in my relationship to myself and my body. I am what feeds me. And how I feed myself at any given moment says a lot about what I'm going through or what I need. I don't believe I am alone. Yes, we eat for our stomachs, but we hunger with our hearts. Like most people and many women, I think about what to eat all the time. I am constantly plotting my next meal, planning how and what I will shop for, and ever hatching new plans to avoid the foods I know will undermine my well-being. Foods are like men: some are good, some are bad, and some are okay only in small doses. But most should be tried at least once. — Padma Lakshmi

I could worry about his health but somehow not about my own. We throw ourselves away a little each day. — Padma Lakshmi

Every city has a Donald Trump; ours is just the Trumpiest. — Padma Lakshmi

Wine, like food, is so emotional. If you think about it, so much of the courting ritual is surrounded by wine and food. There's a built-in romance to wine. — Padma Lakshmi

I didn't wholly identify with the collective experiences of children in either place. I had one foot in each culture, but no firm footing in either of them. At — Padma Lakshmi

I always thought that what Rajima did with those cast-off peels was a metaphor for how she dealt with her arranged marriage. She transformed those peels, with palm sugar for sweetness and tamarind for tang, into something precious. — Padma Lakshmi