Feeding Quotes

“You know, the act of feeding someone is the ultimate act of care and affection...sharing yourself with someone else through food." He held another mouthful of cake under her nose. "Think about it. We are fed in the Eucharist, by our mothers when we are infants, by our parents as children, by friends at dinner parties, by a lover when we feast on one another's bodies...and on occasion, on another's souls.”
― Sylvain Reynard, Gabriel's Inferno

“I have been told by the third grade teacher that my daughter Poppet is reading at middle school level. Yet if I leave Poppet a note in block letters telling her to feed the dogs I will come home to find the dogs have been ... given a swim in the above-ground pool, dressed in tutus, provided with hair weaves. What I will not find is that the dogs have been fed. 'I thought you wanted me to free the dogs,' says Poppet whose school district is not spending quite what D.C.'s is, thanks to voter rejection of the last school bond referendum.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“My dear Orga is here on my lap, sleeping blissfully after I spoilt her with the best cuts of meat from the café and a great deal of cream. Rose made several withering remarks about the devilish nature of faerie cats, as well as my indulgence of her, which he seemed to think a bit maudlin, and yet I saw that old hypocrite sneak her several morsels from his dinner plate when he thought I wasn't looking. Like Shadow, she has adopted a glamour here, and presently looks every bit the part of an ordinary mortal cat, apart from her eyes, which flask like gold coins.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“The art of feeding, it turns out, is not about pushing ‘one more bite’ into someone’s mouth, however healthy the food. Nor is it about authoritarian demands to abstain from all treats. It is about creating a mealtime environment where those eating are free to develop their own tastes, because all the choices on the table are real, whole food.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“It is possible to educate children in the pleasures of food; and that doing so will set the children up for a lifetime of healthy eating. Feeding is learning.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“When I hit thirty, he brought me a cake,
three layers of icing, home-made,
a candle for each stone in weight.
The icing was white but the letters were pink,
they said, EAT ME. And I ate, did
what I was told. Didn’t even taste it.
Then he asked me to get up and walk
round the bed so he could watch my broad
belly wobble, hips judder like a juggernaut.
The bigger the better, he’d say, I like
big girls, soft girls, girls I can burrow inside
with multiple chins, masses of cellulite.
I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook,
my only pleasure the rush of fast food,
his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden fruit.
His breadfruit. His desert island after shipwreck.
Or a beached whale on a king-sized bed
craving a wave. I was a tidal wave of flesh.
too fat to leave, too fat to buy a pint of full-fat milk,
too fat to use fat as an emotional shield,
too fat to be called chubby, cuddly, big-built.
The day I hit thirty-nine, I allowed him to stroke
my globe of a cheek. His flesh, my flesh flowed.
He said, Open wide, poured olive oil down my throat.
Soon you’ll be forty… he whispered, and how
could I not roll over on top. I rolled and he drowned
in my flesh. I drowned his dying sentence out.
I left him there for six hours that felt like a week.
His mouth slightly open, his eyes bulging with greed.
There was nothing else left in the house to eat.”
― Patience Agbabi, Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry

“If you don't respect science, clothing, feeding, and keeping you alive, then a thinking person should break every rule to avoid going to your idea of heaven ~ Dr. Peter Ojo.”
― Peter Ojo

“You give a whole lot of respect to food when you know what hunger is capable of.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Learning to be a parasite is the crucible of unmet longing for that something-else that can complete you, enfolded somewhere, still perhaps hidden.”
― A. V. Marraccini, We the Parasites

“You will be the silliest person if you think and expect that a leader will feed you rather than you feed him at every step. Keep in mind that your fate and destination are only your votes; the leader needs you, and you need to use your wisdom and make the right choice. The decision is in your hands: destroy yourself or build success.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“The way we reward children with food is based on folk memories of a food supply that has not existed in the West for decades, when white sugar was so rare it seemed to sparkle like snow.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Feeding children too often can make them forget what their own hunger feels like. Large portions lead to overeating. And giving food to calm a distressed child teaches them that unhappiness is a reason to eat.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Force-feeding is a crime of passion, driven by a parent’s desire to see a child eat; as with other crimes of passion, the perpetrator has lost sight of the loved one’s autonomy.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Indulgence makes a child fat. Restriction makes a child fat and unhappy.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“The true objective is independence: for a child to reach the point where they can regulate their own intake of food and to choose the things that will do them good while giving them pleasure. Weaning them off milk is one thing. But the real task for a parent is to wean children off needing you.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Next time you sit down to eat, imagine you are an ideal parent feeding a beloved child. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could offer yourself food in a warm, structured, no-fuss kind of way? You wouldn’t punish yourself with crash diets nor would you allow yourself too much junk. Your priority when choosing food would be to see yourself well nourished and you’d choose meals to keep your mood on an even keel. You’d want yourself to enjoy eating. The pantry would be stocked with good food and you would trust yourself to choose wisely from its contents.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“What is so damaging about our gendered approach to food is that it encourages both boys and girls to feed themselves in ways that go against what their bodies require. We have got things the wrong way round. It is girls more than boys who need the most haemoglobin-boosting foods. And boys more than girls are lacking in salad and vegetables. Girl food and boy food are dangerous nonsense that prevents us from seeing the real problems of feeding boys and girls.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Contrary to the impression given by the health pages of newspapers, the greatest single nutritional shortfall in our diets right now is not our failure to eat enough ‘superfoods’, whatever those might be. It is the iron deficiency of girls.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Feeding is learning.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Most of our approaches to feeding children are too short term. We worry about the next five minutes when we should worry about the next five years.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“Believe it or not, the greatest way of reaching the heavens, is by feeding those who sleep under the stars.”
― Monaristw

“Do not bite the hand that feeds you until it is no longer feeding you.”
― Steven Magee

“As the old saying goes, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” But that depends on what the hand is feeding you and what the other hand is doing while you’re eating.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“As food feeds the body, so does music feed the soul.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Don’t feed the mouth, and starve the brain.
Feed them both.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“Bennett reached for the fork first and scooped up a perfect bite of everything, which was a relief. A relief that turned into panic when he held the fork out toward me. Not for me to take---for me to take a bite. "For you, sweetheart." His eyes sparkled behind his glasses.
I squared my shoulders. I could not believe this was happening. "Thank you, darling," I forced out, and let him feed me.
My lips closed over the fork, Bennett watching the entire time. My face warmed again at the intentness of his stare on my mouth, but surely he was just watching to see when he could remove the utensil.
The babka beignet was spectacular, light and fluffy and buttery, the chocolate filling dark and sweet against the tart brightness of the cherry. I parted my lips so that he could pull the fork back. His face was red again.
Fortunately, he didn't make me feed him, just took a bite himself.
Sadie asked, "So? What do you think?"
"Delicious," he said, but he wasn't even looking at the dessert. He was looking at me.
I couldn't even bring myself to answer. I could still feel the insistent push of his fork against my lips.”
― Amanda Elliot, Best Served Hot

“Water goes hand in hand with food, just like children and crying.”
― John Joclebs Bassey, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“It is not everything that the flesh desire it must have, feeding it with all it desires may sooner than later work against your entire system, be disciplined.”
― Daniel ANIKOR

“Dad never praised my cooking or complained about it, either. So I always thought cooking was like putting on your socks, say, or opening a window - nothing special. But now that I had a girlfriend I realized that if you fed a woman good food she'd be yours forever, and was kind of upset with Dad for not telling me something so important.”
― Yōko Tawada, Scattered All Over the Earth

“If you were looking for whom to make a hero, look in the direction where there are farmers, for they are the ones who have conspired with nature to save humanity.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Pour Like Rain