With Potato Quotes & Sayings

My stepmother was no beauty. She was round and squat with a face not unlike a potato that had been scrubbed. — Sally Gardner

I started the day with a potato. I washed it down with some Martian coffee. That's my name for "hot water with a caffeine pill dissolved in it." I ran out of real coffee months ago. — Andy Weir

Going to a movie so you won't be offended is like eating potato chips made with Olestra; you avoid the dangers of the real thing, but your insides fill up with synthetic runny stuff. — Roger Ebert

Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.
Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you're with someone for so long you get used to them, y'know? It's a comfort-zone thing. When we get settled in our comfort zone, trying to pull us out of it even if everything about it is hell and unhealthy, is like trying to pull a fat ass couch potato out of his living room long enough to get a life. — J.A. Redmerski

She made a creche outside the Inn. The natives thought it was wonderful, and Sister Honey was gratified by their numbers.
Why have the devils with wings come to mock at the poor baby?' asked the children, pointing to the angels.
The baby is the Number One Lord Jesus Christ,' Ayah told them.
But he hasn't any clothes on! Aren't they going to give Him anything? Not a little red robe? Not a bit of melted butter?'
This is His Mother,' said Ayah, showing them the little porcelain Virgin in blue and white and pink. 'He is her child.'
That isn't true,' said the women, measuring the baby with their eyes. 'He's too big to be possible. Probably He's a dragon, an evil spirit in the shape of a child, and presently He'll eat up the woman. — Rumer Godden

The French don't snack. They will tear off the endo of a fres baguette (which, if it's warm, it's practically impossible to resist) and eat it as they leave the boulangerie. And that's usually all you will see being consumed on the street. Compare that with the public eating and drinking that goes on in America: pizza, hot dogs, nachos, tacos, heroes, potato chips, sandwiches, jerricans of coffee, half-gallon buckets of Coke (Diet, of cours) and heaven knows what else being demolished on the hoof, often on the way to the aerobic class. — Peter Mayle

Fred, George, Harry, and Ron were the only ones who knew that the angel on top of the tree was actually a garden gnome that had bitten Fred on the ankle as he pulled up carrots for Christmas dinner. Stupefied, painted gold, stuffed into a miniature tutu and with small wings glued to its back, it glowered down at them all, the ugliest angel Harry had ever seen, with a large bald head like a potato and rather hairy feet. — J.K. Rowling

I eat leftover caviar by hand, with baked potato, like peasants. — Ion Tiriac

We have 11 great potato flavors, and customers have been clamoring for tortilla. For over a year, we worked to develop the four flavors of tortilla popchips: chili limon, nacho cheese, ranch and salsa. They're made with traditional stoneground masa, are gluten-free, and have less than half the fat of other chips. — Keith Belling

Will, was not as taken with the photo of the new baby as the grown ups around him. "It look like Mr. Potato Head." "I'm sure your baby sister will appreciate that," Alessandro said with a wry grin. "A girl? It's a girl?" Will asked with a grimace. "That's right," Bree announced as Vanessa and Brian congratulated them. "I can play wif Gianni but what we gonna do wif a girl?" he asked, handing the picture back to them. "Nope, send it back
and get another boy dis time. — E. Jamie

Earth life is giant field day where we willingly choose the limitation of racing with both feet in a potato sack, or sometimes we join up with another and agree to the limitation of racing as a team where each person has one leg tied to the leg of the other ... Agreeing to run a race with limitations or live a life with limitations doesn't mean you're slow, clumsy, or unenlightened. It just means you're showing up on field day, participating, and if you're really good, you try your best despite the obstacles. — Kaya McLaren

We came out with a rice and a corn chip, then quickly decided we needed to focus on potato. It was just too much for consumers to figure out at once. — Keith Belling

As the EPA sees it, Bt has always been a safe pesticide, the potato has always been a safe food, so put the two together and you've got something that should be safe both to eat and to kill bugs with. — Michael Pollan

The staff played hot potato with my call until someone could locate the Person in Charge of Lying to the Press. The PCLP said that the room that houses the base archives is locked. And that only the curator would have a key. And that Holloman currently has no curator. Evidently the new curator's first task would be to find a way to open the archives. — Mary Roach

Yet in reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all those with a take on the future of the potato crisp, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.
Our era is perverse in passing off an exception as a rule. — Alain De Botton

If you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone. — Sandra Cisneros

The worst thing about television is that everybody you see on television is doing something better than what you're doing. You never see anybody on TV just sliding off the front of the sofa, with potato chip crumbs all over their shirt. — Jerry Seinfeld

Yet as a general rule it's a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound "whole-grain goodness" to the rafters. — Michael Pollan

avoid refined carbohydrates: white sugar, honey, high-fructose corn syrup, cookies, cakes, pastries, white bread, crackers, potato chips, french fries, commercial waffles, candy, donuts, and many dry breakfast cereals (juice-sweetened cereals listing whole grains as a primary ingredient are okay, but those with added sugar, evaporated cane juice, or honey are likely to raise your levels of tumor-fueling blood sugar and insulin). Instead, emphasize whole grains such as those above, as well as complex carbs such as vegetables, legumes, beans, and fresh fruit. If you crave something sweet, try dried fruit, rice syrup, barley malt, agave, kiwi sweetener, stevia, FruitSource, or maple syrup. — Keith Block

Look, what could possibly be harmful, yeah? It's Cyber Unit. We're up against people who's living in their parent's basement, covered with potato chips and peanut butter while wearing cheap secondhand headphone. — Rea Lidde

She smiled. "You're very sweet." "Now you go too far - " She shoved her hand under his nose. "This is your ring you see, my lord, and that gives me the right to tell you to be quiet. So, be quiet. I'll probably be back to thinking you're a jerk tomorrow, so live with the compliment while it's still in force. Got it?" He grumbled something she didn't catch. But then, to her utter surprise, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it in a rough, Richardy kind of way. Then he dropped it as if it had been a hot potato, set her on her feet, then leaned his head back against the chair and pretended to snore. Jessica went to bed with a smile on her face. — Lynn Kurland

Fat men in tank tops drank beer while the women and children streamed back and forth between the tables and their battered station wagons, bringing ice chests and boxes of potato chips and marshmallows. A little dog was doing circles around the kids' legs. The far curb of the turnout lane was lined with semis, the cabs dark and the drivers inside sleeping or shaving or eating, staring at the horizon and thinking whatever it is truckers think. — Rick Riordan

My mom told me if I ever got a tattoo, she was going to take it off with a potato peeler. — Jacob Dalton

At the front window was something that looked like a machine gun with a cluster of barrels. "Rocket launcher?" he wondered aloud.
"Nope, nope! Potatoes. Ella doesn't like potatoes."
"Ella! Where are the others?"
"Roof. Ogre-watching. Ella doesn't like ogres. Potatoes."
Potatoes? Frank didn't understand until he swiveled the machine gun around. Its eight barrels were loaded with spuds. At the base of the gun, a basket was filled with more edible ammunition ...
"They have cannonballs," Frank said, "and we have a potato gun."
"Starch," Ella said thoughtfully. "Starch is bad for ogres. — Rick Riordan

Sugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina: possibly the most luscious of the world's garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine.
With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the city's native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth.
In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

If a steaming hot potato fell in your hands you would get it off you as soon as you could. Do the same with negative destructive thoughts- just release them as fast as you can. — John Assaraf

I began to ponder; this life we had for ourselves, Eric and I, it felt like the opposite of Potage Parmentier. It was easy enough to keep on with the soul-sucking jobs; at least it saved having to make a choice. But how much longer could I take such an easy life? Quicksand was easy. Hell, death was easy. Maybe that's why my synapses had started snapping at the sight of potatoes and leeks in the Korean deli. Maybe that was what was plucking deep down in my belly whenever I thought of Julia Child's book. Maybe I needed to make like a potato, winnow myself down, be a part of something that was not easy, just simple. — Julie Powell

Poverty is a dish best served with Potato Soup. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

It is always wise to make too much potato salad. Even if you are cooking for two, make enough for five. Potato salad improves with age - that is, if you are lucky enough to have any left over. — Laurie Colwin

Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: potato chips, croutons, crunchy peanut butter. Any food that was more than infinitesimally, protozoically, spicy or tangy or salty or acidic: pesto or Worcestershire sauce, wasabi or anchovies, tomato juice or movie-theater popcorn. Certain pamphlets and magazines whose paper carried a caustic wafting chemical scent she could taste as she turned the pages. Perfume. Incense. Library books. Long hours of easy conversation. The ability to lick an envelope without worrying that the glue had irritated her mouth. The knowledge that if she heard a song she liked, she could sing along to it in all her dreadful jubilant tunelessness. The faith that if she bit her tongue, she would soon feel better rather than worse. — Kevin Brockmeier

Downhill's the future of the sport. Cross-country's not geared for TV. Some fat guy watching it with a beer in one hand and potato chips in the other is going to say, I can do that. America likes to see people crash. — Missy Giove

The worst part of the potato blight was that it didn't go away. After the 1845 crops failed, people counted on the potatoes of 1846 to pull them through, but those potatoes rotted away, too. For some reason the crop of 1847 survived, but not enough fields of potatoes had been planted to produce enough food for everyone who needed it. And in 1848 the blight reappeared with a vengeance. — Ryan Hackney

Similar to siblings, French Fries all stem from the same family, the potato family. Yet each and every one is different. A different shape, a different flavor, a different purpose, etc. Now, despite all these differences, each French fry in the batch will share a similar origin story. However, the outcome will be unique. The point is to have patience with your sibling French fry and realize that life imprints differently on each and every one of us. Some of us will be salty, some of us will be peppered, but in the end we are all just trying to catch up. — Hannah Hart

The dogs came racing up the stairs. They danced at Rima's feet, frantic with the need to communicate something to her. Little Timmy's down the well! Feed us ice cream and potato chips! Sometimes there's a benefit to not sharing a language. — Karen Joy Fowler

We consume everything like potato chips. In this environment, I suspect the cartoonist's connection with readers is likely to be superficial and fleeting, unless he taps into some fervent special interest niche. And that audience, almost by definition, will be tiny. — Bill Watterson

It is not known that Litvinoff's favorite flower was the peony. That his favorite form of punctuation was the question mark. That he had terrible dreams and could only fall asleep, if he could fall asleep at all, with a glass of warm milk. That he often imagined his own death. That he thought the woman who loved him was wrong to. That he was flat-footed. That his favorite food was the potato.That he liked to think of himself as a philosopher. That he questioned all things, even the most simple, to the extent that when someone passing him on the street raised his hat and said, "Good day," Litvinoff often paused so long to weigh the evidence that by the time he'd settled on an answer the person had gone on his way, leaving him standing alone.
These things were lost to oblivion like so much about so many who are born and die without anyone ever taking the time to write it all down. — Nicole Krauss

I heard one story about an octopus in a home tank who would get out, cruise around the house, take knick-knacks, and drag them back to its tank. Like a dog! They're so smart that there are octopus enrichment handbooks so you don't bore your octopus. I've seen them play with Legos, Mr. Potato Head, you name it! — Sy Montgomery

We read in the paper about a fifty-five-year-old woman-you read right, that's fifty five- who had quadruplets! Since the pregnancy was in vitro, it was clearly on purpose. I've got to tell you, we were all pretty happy that we hadn't done this and also none of us had ever considered it. Nor had we considered pulling out all our teeth with pliers or slamming our fingers in the car door repeatedly just to see what it feels like. — Jill Conner Browne

There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this:but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring down my face, I should be grateful for shade. — Charles Dudley Warner

Booker T. Jones sounds more pithy and forceful than ever on "Potato Hole" ... Mr. Jones still jabs terse, unhurried melodies that sound as if he knows the lyrics but would never tell. Where the M.G.'s suavely underplayed their aggression, the rockers' multiple-guitar attack, with distortion and feedback, gives the music teeth. — Jon Pareles

A man needs but two things: a reliable moral compass to guide him and a strong dose of integrity to see him through all manner of troubles," Pensive said, raising his untensil with a wink. Tibbs stared doubtfully at the fork and said, "That not integrity. That's boiled potato with cream sauce." Pensive paused before answering, taking a delicate bite and dabbing his mouth with a napkin. "Nary a whit of difference, Tibbs, " he said decidedly. "Nary a whit. — Jessica Lawson

Happiness is the cure - a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both. No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. — Charlotte Bronte

Laziness isn't merely a physical phenomenon,about being a couch potato,stuffing your face with fries and watching cricket all day. It's a mental thing, too, and that's the part I have never aspired for. — Shah Rukh Khan

People rarely speak of children; you hear of 'cohort groups' and 'standard variations,' but you don't hear much of boys who miss their cats or 6-year-olds who have to struggle with potato balls. — Jonathan Kozol

(26) Eat Potatoes According to researchers at Los Angeles' Pacific Western University, savoring a tasty, filling potato every day (as long as you eat it mashed, boiled or baked -- not fried) helps 81 percent of people get their blood pressure under control (and with just half their usual prescription meds). — Stephen Tvedten

I wondered what you'd have on the side with a plate of Deep Fried Anxiety. Pickles? Coleslaw? Potato-strychnine mash? — Robin McKinley

You know," said Jack, "I was a King for a while in Hindoostan, and my subjects would get worked up into a lather about a potato, which to them was worth as much as a treasure-chest. At first I'd want to know everything about the potato in question, and I would take a large stake in the matter, but towards the end of my reign - "
Here Jack rolled his eyes, as Frenchmen frequently did during encounters with Englishmen. Leroy seemed to take his meaning very clearly. "It is the same with every King. — Neal Stephenson

Two generations ago only a few unfortunate children ever saw anyone hit over the head with a brick, shot, rammed by a car, blown up, immolated, raped or tortured. Now all children, along with their elders, see such images every day of their lives and are expected to enjoy them ... The seven-year-old who hides his eyes in the family cops-and-robbers drama is desensitized four years later to a point where he crunches potato chips through the latest video nasty. — Penelope Leach

What was that sound? That rustling noise? It could be heard in the icy North, where there was not one leaf left upon one tree, it could be heard in the South, where the crinoline skirts lay deep in the mothballs, as still and quiet as wool. It could be heard from sea to shining sea, o'er purple mountains' majesty and upon the fruited plain. What was it? Why, it was the rustle of thousands of bags of potato chips being pulled from supermarket racks; it was the rustle of plastic bags being filled with beer and soda pop and quarts of hard liquor; it was the rustle of newspaper pages fanning as readers turned eagerly to the sports section; it was the rustle of currency changing hands as tickets were scalped for forty times their face value and two hundred and seventy million dollars were waged upon one or the other of two professional football teams. It was the rustle of Super Bowl week ... — Tom Robbins

Vanity, right?" Nash reappeared in the living room with an open bag of potato chips. "I nominate my venerable brother. He likes to play hero, and one look at him should establish the vanity angle."
"Nash!" I really shouldn't have been surprised by the dig. But I was.
"What?" He raised one brow at me in challenge. "It's okay to call me jealous, but not to call him vain?"
"Awareness of one's obvious advantages doesn't imply vanity," Tod insisted calmly.
Nash turned on him. "Does it imply narcissism?"
Tod huffed. "This coming from the guy who owns more hair products than his girlfriend. — Rachel Vincent

Nothing is more American than stuffing your face with loaded potato skins while drinking loaded mudslides. — Chelsea Handler

The French fried potato has become an inescapable horror in almost every public eating place in the country. 'French fries', say the menus, but they are not French fries any longer. They are a furry-textured substance with the taste of plastic wood. — Russell Baker

They entered the wild country. Broken fences. Ruined castles. Stretches of bogland. Wooded headlands. Turfsmoke rose from cabins, thin and mean. On the muddy paths, they glimpsed moving rags. The rags seemed more animate than the bodies within. As they passed, the families regarded them. The children appeared marooned with hunger. — Colum McCann

The elementary school years can also be a source of shame. Children can be terribly cruel. Any gay or lesbian child is especially vulnerable to ridicule. A child with developmental deficits, deformities or who is overweight is also an easy target. Children will shame other children the way they've been shamed. And if a child is being shamed at home, he will want to pass the hot potato by shaming others. Children like to tease. And teasing is a major source of shaming. Teasing is often done by shame-based parents, who transfer their shame by teasing their children. Older siblings can deliver some of the cruelest teasing of all. I have been horrified listening to clients' accounts of being teased by older siblings. — John Bradshaw

There's a deli around the corner from my office where I'd get a bag of chips with my sandwich, and I was hiding them under my sandwich because I was embarrassed. When I had this epiphany that I was hiding the potato chips from myself, I realized there was an opportunity there. — Keith Belling

While we're at it, why don't we add a third emotion to this list: lust. You are probably unaware that Linnaeus lumped the tomato into the same genus as the potato, a food with a reputation for its widespread availability and easy satisfaction of oral needs. — Benson Bruno

If you don't want me to be in love with you, you're going to have to stop looking so lovely. First thing tomorrow I'm having your maids sew some potato sacks together for you. — Kiera Cass

At my urgent request the Curie laboratory, in which radium was discovered a short time ago, was shown to me. The Curies themselves were away travelling. It was a cross between a stable and a potato-cellar, and, if I had not seen the worktable with the chemical apparatus, I would have thought it a practical joke.
(Wilhelm Ostwald on seeing the Curie's laboratory facilities.) — Wilhelm, Ostwald

A potato can grow quite easily on a very small plot of land. With molecular manufacturing, we'll be able to have distributed manufacturing, which will permit manufacturing at the site using technologies that are low-cost and easily available. — Ralph Merkle

He read me extracts from a medical journal describing the progress of a staphylococcus aureus infection. And then he pleasured me with a potato. — Grant Morrison

To see certain things, you have to be lying on your back with tears in your eyes and a scalding potato in your mouth. It's possible, I think, that you have to be hurt to see anything at all. — Pete Dexter

When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul. — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
We'd travel all over the land.
We'd play and we'd sing and wear spangly things,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.
If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
And we were up there on the stand,
The people would hear us and love us and cheer us,
Hurray for that rock 'n' roll band.
If we were a rock 'n' roll band
Then we'd have a million fans.
We'd goggle and laugh and sign autographs,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.
If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
The people would all kiss our hands.
We'd be millionaires and have extra long hair,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.
But we ain't no rock 'n' roll band,
We're just seven kids in the sand
With homemade guitars and pails and jars
And drums of potato chip cans.
Just seven kids in the sand,
Talkin' and wavin' our hands,
And dreamin' and thinkin' oh wouldn't it be grand,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band. — Shel Silverstein

Loaves of fig and pepper bread, of course. But there was also lasagna cooked in miniature pumpkins, and pumpkin-seed brittle. Roasted red pepper soup, and spiced caramel potato cakes. Corn muffins and brown sugar popcorn balls and a dozen cupcakes, each with a different frosting, because what was first frost without frosting? Pear beer and clove ginger ale in dark bottles sat in the icy beverage tub. They ate well into the afternoon, and the more they ate, the more food there seemed to be. Pretzel buns and cranberry cheese and walnuts appearing, just when they thought they'd tasted everything. — Sarah Addison Allen

Nothing was planned in my career. I just went with the flow and took everything that came to me. Selling potato chips was obvious, as it was a family business. When friends suggested I should try theatre, I gave it a shot. Then I did a lot of advertisements, and then movies happened. — Boman Irani

Want to know when I first fell a little in love with you?"

"When I didn't faint from fright after meeting Secmis?" She'd come close, practically falling into Brishen's arms when they escaped the throne room.

"That was impressive. No cowering subject before her, but no." He tugged the blanket over her shoulder where it had fallen away. "It was when you ate the scarpatine and declared it tasted nothing like chicken."

She sniffed. "Then you're easily impressed. I don't think I fell in love with you just because you choked down a potato. Granted, you didn't have to engage it in battle before you ate it."

'You're hard to please."

She thumped his chest above his sternum. "I am not."

"Ouch." He rubbed the injured spot. — Grace Draven

[Slitscan's audience] is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections. — William Gibson

I do enjoy my solo time ... I want to stay home and do soundtracks and watch TV in my underwear with a keyboard on my lap and just be a couch potato. — Ariel Pink

So when his tractor came to a smash-halt, the potato-digger rising up behind and then crashing back down, Bob was flung forward over the engine block and directly into the Dome. His iPod exploded in the wide front pocket of his bib overalls, but he never felt it. He broke his neck and fractured his skull on the nothing he collided with and died in the dirt shortly thereafter, by one tall wheel of his tractor, which was still idling. Nothing, you know, runs like a Deere. — Stephen King

Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. — Charles Babbage

An excellent choice to pair the scarpatine with the potato, Your Highness. They are better together than apart. — Grace Draven

The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on the hill, and drink vodka, and wear black furs, and slurp borscht by the pail, like blood. Children may wear through their socks marching in righteous parades, but Papa never misses his wine with supper. Therefore, it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one's stomach than of one's nation. — Catherynne M Valente

The hiking boots the outdoor adventure magazine sent me to buy - large, ungainly potato like things that I have been trying to break in for the past four days - cut into my feet and draw blood as if the were lined with cheese graters. I have come to hate these Timberlands with a fervor I usually reserve for people. Just think, the shoes I wouldn't be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in. — David Rakoff

I point at Drew, as I turn to Dawn. See? My sister finds her soulmate, and not only does she get rewarded with love and happiness, she gets free champagne flutes, and dutch ovens, and fifty-dollar checks. And what do I get? What do I get on a day when I still haven't found anyone to love? When I'm waiting by the phone for some jerk to call me, and acting like a crazy woman, e-mailing him at three a.m., clutching at straws that I might ever find anyone? Do I get gifts? No! I get condemnation from my grandmother, and I get to wear a dress that makes me look like a baked potato. — Kim Gruenenfelder

Add boyish, slim as a board, pancake. It's okay, I've heard it all."

He raised his head and said mildly, "I wasn't thinking in terms of your chest size."

"Good thing as I don't have one." She smirked and popped a big chunk of potato into her mouth. "The nice thing is I can run without those things flying in my face, too." And damn if she didn't make a comical face that had him shouting with laughter. — Dale Mayer

They spent the next hour nibbling their way through the food stalls, sharing spiral-cut potatoes, pork sandwiches, and cream puffs. They found a table in one of the many shaded beer gardens, and Lou retrieved some ice-cold Summer Shandys to go with their food. The beer had a light lemon edge that offset the malt, making it an ideal hot-summer-day drink. The potato spirals, long twirls coated in bright orange cheese, combined the thin crispiness of a potato chip with a French fry. And the cream puffs... The size of a hamburger on steroids, the two pate a choux ends showcased almost two cups of whipped cream- light, fluffy, and fresh. — Amy E. Reichert

With his bare hands Mulder dug at the loose earth. After a minute, he said, 'I've go it. I just have to pull it out and-'
He got no further.
He and Scully were blinded by a high power flashlight.
When their vision cleared, they saw the sheriff looming over them, brandishing an ugly-looking .45.
'May I ask what you're doing?' he growled.
Mulder held up what he had found in the earth: a piece of raw potato.
'Exhuming your potato,' was all he could say. — Les Martin

Soy sauce and seaweed go really well with potato chips. — Jose Andres

Of course it's also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness. — Michael Pollan

The Americans fished on, not hoping for much anymore, perhaps for a miracle, searching for small things to be happy about, because they were Americans and this was what their upbringings had taught them to do. They found a brief happiness, for example, in the potato chips that came to their rooms on expensive china and in the genuinely hopeful way the hotel girl asked if they'd had any luck. They took pleasure in their morning calls to the Lufthansa man, his wriggly explanations for the canceled flights to Norway. They smiled at the way a church had been built so the setting sun hit it high and perfect and orange, and the way they could follow the river to a park where miniskirted women lay in the grass with headphones clamped over their ears, and even at the way the little student-girls came filing down at noon behind their English-teaching beauty to call them fools. — Anthony Doerr

He also said - pointedly - that space travel nowadays was an escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worst would happen and be done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out the porthole - especially when returning from a long voyage - to see whether or not our planet resembled a burnt potato. — Stanislaw Lem

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. — Erma Bombeck

Beat sprouts, I croaked, ashamed I'd reached a point in my life where I had to make decisions like choosing between bean sprouts or potato chips (and then going with fucking bean sprouts!). — Brando Skyhorse

Lemme take your picture! You fucking bok gwai low got a face carved out of rotten potato cured in dogshit, runover with a towtruck driven by Hellen Keller in a puke fit on pills ... — Frank Chin

My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with. — Oprah Winfrey

Old school new school need to learn though I burn baby, burn like Disco Inferno Burn slow like blunts with ya-yo Peel more skins than Idaho potato — The Notorious B.I.G.

So what is the best vegetable? Well, we all know that: it's the potato. The vegetable you can't screw up. You can throw a potato into a bonfire, run away from it - and, an hour later, it's turned into a meal. Try doing that with broccoli, or a trifle, and it will laugh in your face. — Caitlin Moran

I'm just a potato that won't quit. I'm a potato with some legs. Some have eyes, I've got legs. — Bill Murray

Allegories are told with a purpose whose possibility is lost
Until a potato-eater appears and eats potatoes
— Lyn Hejinian

Coraline's father stopped working and made them all dinner.
Coraline was disgusted. "Daddy," she said, "you've made a recipe again."
"It's leek and potato stew with a tarragon garnish and melted Gruyere cheese," he admitted.
Coraline sighed. Then she went to the freezer and got out some microwave chips and a microwave minipizza.
"You know I don't like recipes," she told her father, while her dinner went around and around and the little red numbers on the microwave oven counted down to zero. — Neil Gaiman

Phury lit a blunt and eyed the sixteen cans of Aqua Net that were lined up on Butch and V's coffee table.
"What's doing with the hair spray? You boys going drag on us?"
Butch held up the lenght of PVC pipe he was punching a hole in.
"Potato launcher, my man. Big fun."
"Excuse me ?"
"Didn't you ever go to summer camp ?"
"Basket weaving and woodcarving are for humans. No offense, but we have better things to teach our youngs. — J.R. Ward

One Indian-inspired favourite of mine is mashed potato mixed with lemon juice, breadcrumbs, coriander and chilli, shaped into patties, fried and served with chutney and yoghurt. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Taking Root

I am no stranger to roots. In third grade, I punctured
a sweet potato's middle with toothpicks, suspended
it halfway in a cup of water until sprout-like whiskers

swam along its bottom. On day nine leaves crowned it.
I scooped out soil with my hands and buried it up
to its neck. I've laid down my own in places

where corn and tomatoes grow in vacant lots,
where cilantro and basil thrive on window sills
and in cities balanced on ancestor's bones.

Roots are hardy travelers, adaptable: they float
on water, cohere to wood, burrow deep beneath
foundations, challenge floorboards.

from Second Skin — Diana Anhalt

A little tomato who knows her onions can go out with an old potato and come home with a lot of lettuce and a couple of carats. — Herbert V. Prochnow

My favorite dish is brown rice with lentils, roasted red and yellow peppers, and fennel, with a sweet potato and a salad on the side. — Christie Brinkley

Peasant families ate pork, beef, or game only a few times a year; fowls and eggs were eaten far more often. Milk, butter, and hard cheeses were too expensive for the average peasant. As for vegetables, the most common were cabbage and watercress. Wild carrots were also popular in some places. Parsnips became widespread by the sixteenth century, and German writings from the mid-1500s indicate that beet roots were a preferred food there. Rutabagas were developed during the Middle Ages by crossing turnips with cabbage, and monastic gardens were known for their asparagus and artichokes. However, as a New World vegetable, the potato was not introduced into Europe until the late 1500s or early 1600s, and for a long time it was thought to be merely a decorative plant.

"Most people ate only two meals a day. In most places, water was not the normal beverage. In Italy and France people drank wine, in Germany and England ale or beer. — Patricia D. Netzley

We can but stand aside, and let them Rush upon their Fate! There is scarcely anything of yours, upon which it is so dangerous to Rush, as your Fate. You may Rush upon your Potato-beds, or your Strawberry-beds, without doing much harm: you may even Rush upon your Balcony (unless it is a new house, built by contract, and with no clerk of the works) and may survive the foolhardy enterprise: but if you once Rush upon your FATE
why, you must take the consequences! — Lewis Carroll

Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it.
Unless your name is something along the lines of Mozart, Matisse, Churchill, Che Guevara or Bond - James Bond - you best spent your free time finger painting or playing shuffeboard, for no one, with the exception of your flabby-armed mother with stiff hair and a mashed potato way of looking at you, will want to hear the particulars of your pitiable existence, which doubtlessly will end as it began - with a wheeze. — Marisha Pessl

On summer evenings, when every flower, and tree, and bird, might have better addressed my soft young heart, I have in my day been caught in the palm of a female hand by the crown, have been violently scrubbed from the neck to the roots of the hair as a purification for the Temple, and have then been carried off highly charged with saponaceous electricity, to be steamed like a potato in the unventilated breath of the powerful Boanerges Boiler and his congregation, until what small mind I had, was quite steamed out of me — Charles Dickens