“
But even in hell there are moments when the light reaches you.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
there are many points in life when we cannot see what awaits us around the corner, and it is precisely at such times, when our path forward is unclear, that we must bravely keep our nerve, resolutely putting one foot before the other as we march blindly into the dark.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Never be afraid of trying something new, Hassan. Very important. It is the spice of life.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
All this sea of humanity reassured me that as alien as i felt, there were always others in the world far odder than I
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
never forget a snob is a person utterly lacking in good taste.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
A powerful thing, destiny. You can't run from it. Not in the end.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Good taste is not the birthright of snobs, but a gift from God sometimes found in the unlikeliest of people".
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
But of course, no family is an island unto itself. It is always part of a larger culture: a community.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
I do think you have to change with the times in a way that renews your core essence, not abandons it. To change for the sake of change—without an anchor—that is mere faddishness. It will only lead you further astray.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
My friends, the hardest thing, when you reach a certain level, is to stay fresh, day in and day out. The world changes very fast around us, no? So, as difficult as it is, the key to success is to embrace this constant change and move with the times,” said Chef Piquot.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
But women- this I will never understand- they are touched by the oddest things
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
My dear man, a gourmand is a gentleman with the talent and fortitude to continue eating even when he is not hungry.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
I once expected to spend seven years walking around the world on foot. I walked from Mexico to Panama where the road ended before an almost uninhabited swamp called the Choco Colombiano. Even today there is no road. Perhaps it is time for me to resume my wanderings where I left off as a tropical tramp in the slums of Panama. Perhaps like Ambrose Bierce who disappeared in the desert of Sonora I may also disappear. But after being in all mankind it is hard to come to terms with oblivion - not to see hundreds of millions of Chinese with college diplomas come aboard the locomotive of history - not to know if someone has solved the riddle of the universe that baffled Einstein in his futile efforts to make space, time, gravitation and electromagnetism fall into place in a unified field theory - never to experience democracy replacing plutocracy in the military-industrial complex that rules America - never to witness the day foreseen by Tennyson 'when the war-drums no longer and the battle-flags are furled, in the parliament of man, the federation of the world.'
I may disappear leaving behind me no worldly possessions - just a few old socks and love letters, and my windows overlooking Notre-Dame for all of you to enjoy, and my little rag and bone shop of the heart whose motto is 'Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.' I may disappear leaving no forwarding address, but for all you know I may still be walking among you on my vagabond journey around the world."
[Shakespeare & Company, archived statement]
”
”
George Whitman
“
When we arrived, the sun was setting, like a mango sorbet dripping over the horizon; the platinum rolls of the Mediterranean produced the soothing sound of waves thudding the cliff rocks below us.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
And laughter, once again laughter. Heaven on earth, no?
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Single trees are extraordinary; trees in number more extraordinary still. To walk in a wood is to find fault with Socrates's declaration that 'Trees and open country cannot teach me anything, whereas men in town do.' Time is kept and curated and in different ways by trees, and so it is experienced in different ways when one is among them. This discretion of trees, and their patience, are both affecting. It is beyond our capacity to comprehend that the American hardwood forest waited seventy million years for people to come and live in it, though the effort of comprehension is itself worthwhile. It is valuable and disturbing to know that grand oak trees can take three hundred years to grow, three hundred years to live and three hundred years to die. Such knowledge, seriously considered, changes the grain of the mind.
"Thought, like memory, inhabits external things as much as the inner regions of the human brain. When the physical correspondents of thought disappear, then thought, or its possibility, is also lost. When woods and trees are destroyed -- incidentally, deliberately -- imagination and memory go with them. W.H. Auden knew this. 'A culture,' he wrote warningly in 1953, 'is no better than its woods.'
”
”
Robert Macfarlane (The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot)
“
Gertrude,’ he said, ‘never forget a snob is a person utterly lacking in good taste.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
...the balance sheet of her life, an endless list of credits and debits, of accomplishments and failures, small acts of kindness and real acts of cruelty. And the tears finally come as she looks away, unable to see this thing to the very end, for she knows without looking of the terrible imbalance, how long ago the credits stopped while the debits of vanity and selfishness run on and on.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Go. You are working very hard, Hassan. You deserve some fun. I will take care of Mehtab and your aunt, don’t you worry. The ting about agitated hens, you throw some corn, you cluck over them a bit, and in no time they settle down. So go. I will take care of them. Not to worry.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Cooking isn't like a tired marriage, it's like a passionate affair.
”
”
The Hundred-Foot Journey
“
Oh, yes. Yes. Carne rosto. And un piatto di Mussolini.” The perplexed waiter finally retired once we explained Papa wanted a plate of mussels, not the dictator on a dish.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Hassan, he has the makings of a great chef, it is true, and he has talent beyond anything you and I possess.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Tomorrow I will have that woman removed. Finish. I will not have this. She is an insult to the memory of Gandhi, using these techniques on us.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Death is fairly quick. That’s what England felt like.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
A lot of emotion went into that hundred-foot journey, cardboard suitcase in hand, from one side of Lumière’s boulevard to the other.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Bring him his Calvados immédiatement or I will slap your face,” snapped Le Comte de Nancy. The ashen-faced waiter raced off and returned, in record time, with the requested brandy.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
spices and lemon, grilled until the
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
A man opposite me shifted his feet, accidentally brushing his foot against mine. It was a gentle touch, barely noticeable, but the man immediately reached out to touch my knee and then his own chest with the fingertips of his right hand, in the Indian gesture of apology for an unintended offence. In the carriage and the corridor beyond, the other passengers were similarly respectful, sharing, and solicitous with one another. At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they'd all but pushed one another out of the windows. Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary! That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own. The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where none had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he'd compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less. And in truth, the politeness and consideration shown by the peasant farmers, travelling salesmen, itinerant workers, and returning sons and fathers and husbands did make for an agreeable journey, despite the cramped conditions and relentlessly increasing heat. Every available centimetre of seating space was occupied, even to the sturdy metal luggage racks over our heads. The men in the corridor took turns to sit or squat on a section of floor that had been set aside and cleaned for the purpose. Every man felt the press of at least two other bodies against his own. Yet there wasn't a single display of grouchiness or bad temper
”
”
Gregory David Roberts
“
But this you must know: the violent murder of a mother- when a boy is at the tender age, when he is just discovering girls- it is a terrible thing. confusingly mixed up with all the things feminine, it leaves a charred residue on the soul, like the black marks found at the bottom of a burned pot. no matter how much you scrub and scrub the pot bottom with steel wool and cleansers, the scars, they are permanent
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
That moment, that moment was the pinnacle of my life, these famous and distinguished people on their feet, my camarades de cuisine, all showing me such respect. And I remember thinking: Hmmm. Rather like this. Could get used to it.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
For if there was one human condition that Madame Mallory understood, it was jealousy, the intense pain of realising there are those in the world who simply are greater than we are, surpassing us, in some profound way, in all our accomplishments.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
Energetic cockroaches, antennae waving, scampered across the trays of raw shellfish and sea bream to his elbow, and at his fingertips were the little bowls of his trade—garlic water, green peas, a creamy coconut and cashew gruel, chili and ginger purees.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
and well-informed insights into their insular world. We all took our seats as a picture of a smiling Paul Verdun in toque was projected up onto screens. White jackets streamed from the kitchen: the amuse-bouche, a shot glass filled with a bite-sized baby octopus cooked in its “natural essence,” extra virgin olive oil from Puglia, and a single
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
For the first time in his life, Midhat wished he were more religious. Of course he prayed, but though that was a private mechanism it sometimes felt like a public act, and the lessons of the Quran were lessons by rote, one was steeped in them, hearing them so often. They were the texture of his world, and yet they did not occupy that central, vital part of his mind, the part that was vibrating at this moment, on this train, rattling forward while he struggled to hold all these pieces. As a child he had felt some of the same curiosity he held for the mysteries of other creeds—for Christianity with its holy fire, the Samaritans with their alphabets—but that feeling had dulled while he was still young, when traditional religion began to seem a worldly thing, a realm of morals and laws and the same old stories and holidays. They were acts, not thoughts. He faced the water now along the coast, steadying his gaze on the slow distance, beyond the blur of trees pushing past the tracks, on the desolate fishing boats hobbling over the waves. He sensed himself tracing the lip of something very large, something black and well-like, a vessel which was at the same time an emptiness, and he thought, without thinking precisely, only feeling with the tender edges of his mind, what the Revelation might have been for in its origin. Why it was so important that they could argue to the sword what it meant if God had hands, and whether He had made the universe. Underneath it all was a living urgency, that original issue of magnitude; the way several hundred miles on foot could be nothing to the mind, Nablus to Cairo, one thought of a day’s journey by train, but placed vertically that same distance in depth exposed the body’s smallness and suddenly one thought of dying. Did one need to face the earth, nose to soil, to feel that distance towering above? There was something of his own mortality in this. Oh then but why, in a moment of someone else’s death, must he think of his own disappearance?
”
”
Isabella Hammad (The Parisian)
“
If A Tree Could Wander
Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at ev'ry morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean's water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.
Did Yusaf not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?
Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.
You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams? print!
Out of yourself ? such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
My friends, the hardest thing, when you reach a certain level, is to stay fresh, day in and day out. The world changes very fast around us, no? So, as difficult as it is, the key to success is to embrace this constant change and move with the times,” said Chef Piquot... But Hewitt, seeing how hurt the chef was by this two-pronged attack, added, “You are right, of course, André, but I do think you have to change with the times in a way that renews your core essence, not abandons it. To change for the sake of change—without an anchor—that is mere faddishness. It will only lead you further astray.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
One must act radically. When one pulls out a tooth, one does it with a single tug, and the pain quickly goes away. The Jew must clear out of Europe. Otherwise no understanding will be possible between Europeans. It's the Jew who prevents everything. When I think about it, I realise that I'm extraordinarily humane. At the time of the rule of the Popes, the Jews were mistreated in Rome. Until 1830, eight Jews mounted on donkeys were led once a year through the streets of Rome. For my part, I restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey, I can't do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other solution but extermination. Why should I look at a Jew through other eyes than if he were a Russian prisoner-of-war? In the p.o.w. camps, many are dying. It's not my fault. I didn't want either the war or the p.o.w. camps. Why did the Jew provoke this war?
A good three hundred or four hundred years will go by before the Jews set foot again in Europe. They'll return first of all as commercial travellers, then gradually they'll become emboldened to settle here—the better to exploit us. In the next stage, they become philanthropists, they endow foundations. When a Jew does that, the thing is particularly noticed—for it's known that they're dirty dogs. As a rule, it's the most rascally of them who do that sort of thing. And then you'll hear these poor Aryan boobies telling you : "You see, there are good Jews !"
Let's suppose that one day National Socialism will undergo a change, and become used by a caste of privileged persons who exploit the people and cultivate money. One must hope that in that case a new reformer will arise and clean up the stables.
”
”
Adolf Hitler (Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944)
“
That settles it,” said Mr. Trapwood. “We’re going back to the pension. We’re going to pack. We’re going to be on the Bishop first thing tomorrow. Sir Aubrey will have to send someone else out. Nothing is worth another day in this hellhole.”
Mr. Low did not answer. He had caught a fever and was lying in the bottom of a large canoe owned by the Brothers of the São Gabriel Mission, who had arranged for the crows to be taken back to Manaus. His eyes were closed and he was wandering a little in his mind, mumbling about a boy with hair the color of the belly of the golden toad which squatted on the lily leaves of the Mamari River.
There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn’t been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent.
“They’re good men, the Brothers,” a man on the docks had told them as they set off on their last search for Taverner’s son. “They take in all sorts of strays--orphans, boys with no homes. If anyone knows where Taverner’s lad might be, it’ll be them.”
Then he had spat cheerfully into the river because he was a crony of the chief of police and liked the idea of Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood spending time with the Brothers, who were very holy men indeed and slept on the hard ground, and ate porridge made from manioc roots, and got up four times in the night to pray.
The Brothers’ mission was on a swampy part of the river and very unhealthy, but the Brothers thought only about God and helping their fellowmen. They welcomed Mr. Trapwood and Mr. Low and said they could look over the leper colony to see if they could find anyone who might turn out to be the boy they were looking for.
“They’re a jolly lot, the lepers,” said Father Liam. “People who’ve suffered don’t have time to grumble.”
But the crows, turning green, thought there wouldn’t be much point. Even if there was a boy there the right age, Sir Aubrey probably wouldn’t think that a boy who was a leper could manage Westwood.
Later a group of pilgrims arrived who had been walking on foot from the Andes and were on their way to a shrine on the Madeira River, and the Brothers knelt and washed their feet.
“We know you’ll be proud to share the sleeping hut with our friends here,” they said to Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood, and the crows spent the night on the floor with twelve snoring, grunting men--and woke to find two large and hungry-looking vultures squatting in the doorway.
By the time they returned to Manaus the crows were beaten men. They didn’t care any longer about Taverner’s son or Sir Aubrey, or even the hundred-pound bonus they had lost. All they cared about was getting onto the Bishop and steaming away as fast as it could be done.
”
”
Eva Ibbotson (Journey to the River Sea)
“
The horses, reluctant and excited from the first, become furious and wild. At the next shoal-personal nastiness being past consideration-we dismount, at knee-deep, to give them a moment's rest, shifting the mule's saddle to the trembling long-legged mare, and turning Mr. Brown loose, to follow as he could. After a breathing-spell we resume our splashed seats and the line of wade. Experience has taught us something, and we are more shrewd in choice of footing, the slopes around large trees being attractively high ground, until, by a stumble on a covered root, a knee is nearly crushed against a cypress trunk. Gullies now commence, cut by the rapid course of waters flowing off before north winds, in which it is good luck to escape instant drowning. Then quag again; the pony bogs; the mare, quivering and unmanageable, jumps sidelong among loose corduroy; and here are two riders standing waist-deep in mud and water between two frantic, plunging-horses, fortunately not beneath them. Nack soon extricates himself, and joins the mule, looking on terrified from behind. Fanny, delirious, believes all her legs broken and strewn about her, and falls, with a whining snort, upon her side. With incessant struggles she makes herself a mud bath, in which, with blood-shot eyes, she furiously rotates, striking, now and then, some stump, against which she rises only to fall upon the other side, or upon her back, until her powers are exhausted, and her head sinks beneath the surface. Mingled with our uppermost sympathy are thoughts of the soaked note-books, and other contents of the saddle-bags, and of the.hundred dollars that drown with her. What of dense soil there was beneath her is now stirred to porridge, and it is a dangerous exploit to approach. But, with joint hands, we length succeed in grappling her bridle, and then in hauling her nostrils above water. She revives only for a new tumult of dizzy pawing, before which we hastily retreat. At a second pause her lariat is secured, and the saddle cut adrift. For a half-hour the alternate resuscitation continues, until we are able to drag the head of the poor beast, half strangled by the rope, as well as the mud and water, toward firmer ground, where she recovers slowly her senses and her footing. Any further attempts at crossing the somewhat "wet" Neches bottoms are, of course, abandoned, and even the return to the ferry is a serious sort of joke. However, we congratulate ourselves that we are leaving, not entering the State.
”
”
Frederick Law Olmsted (A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier)
“
At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they’d all but pushed one another out of the windows. Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own. The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where no-one had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he’d compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
the monastery of Mar Saba, a full day’s journey on horseback from the city. Established in the fifth century, like St. Catherine’s at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where the Codex Sinaiticus—the oldest complete text of the Bible—was discovered, Mar Saba had been inhabited for more than fifteen hundred years. Such uninterrupted occupancy was a rarity. Most of the region’s ancient hermitages were, at some point, sacked by invading armies, their libraries looted or destroyed.
”
”
Dan Eaton (The Secret Gospel)
“
Never forget a snob is a person utterly lacking in good taste. I myself forgot this excellent piece of advice, but I trust you will not be so foolish.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
A few weeks ago,” Degeneret said with a snort of contempt, “a no-brains tourist drove into the farm too quickly and killed the mother of those six ducklings. Usually that’s the end for the little ones. The others peck them to death. But that old bird took care of the motherless chicks. Let them join her brood”. “Oh, I see.” “Non, non, madame. That duck will live a full life. I will not kill her. For what? A liver? I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Imagine. A duck showing more kindness than a human being. I can’t have that.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
THE EXODUS BEGINS. [Ex. 12:37–39, 51 (Ca. 1446 B.C.)] And on that very day the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children
”
”
F. LaGard Smith (The Daily Bible® - In Chronological Order (NIV®))
“
Last year, for my first year in “retirement,” I hiked one of the world’s oldest roads: The Way of St. James of Compostela, from Paris to Galicia. Two thousand three hundred kilometers (1,430 miles) on foot, pack on my back like a donkey.
”
”
Bernard Ollivier (Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery along the Silk Road)
“
Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks, Joanne Harris’s Chocolat, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Richard Morais’s The Hundred-Foot Journey, Muriel Barbery’s Gourmet Rhapsody, and Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen.
”
”
Ellery Adams (The Secret, Book, & Scone Society (Secret, Book, & Scone Society, #1))
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
I think that home is anywhere you are at that moment and at peace with the world.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)