I read pretty well in French and Spanish. I don't want to read a book written in French or Spanish in translation. — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I'm usually writing about survival. I never planned it, but it runs through all my books. — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I translated an Emile Zola book, 'The Belly of Paris,' because I didn't find an existing translation that captured his sense of… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I wrote a children's book because children have the most open minds. They are the people who really want to learn. — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I blurbed a nice book, not at all like my book 'The Big Oyster,' called 'The Essential Oyster.' I blurbed a pretty… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
When I was a kid, we had this great advantage of there being no YA books. You read kid books and then… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
In the course of my research, I've read a lot of incredibly bad books - mostly by academics. I'm puzzled as to… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
When I was 13 or 14, I took this speed-reading course. A lot of the things you do in speed reading you… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
“Both Jews and Muslims believe that salt protects against the evil eye. The Book of Ezekial mentions rubbing newborn infants with salt… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
Let's face it: the 19th century really was the great age of the novel - Melville, Hawthorne, Tolstoy. These are the people… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I have this whole section in my oyster book where I talk about how New Yorkers have gotten divorced from the sea… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I always wanted to write a book about a common food that becomes a commercial commodity and therefore becomes economically important and… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
“A 1670 revision of the criminal code found yet another use for salt in France. To enforce the law against suicide, it was ordered… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
“The Romans, Jones pointed out, called a man in love salax, in a salted state, which is the origin of the word salacious.” — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
When you're in theater, you inevitably wind up working in restaurants. I made pastry. — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
“For a time, the Hanseatics were well appreciated as honorable merchants who ensured quality and fought against unscrupulous practices. They were known as Easterlings… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
I blurbed a nice book, not at all like my book 'The Big Oyster,' called 'The Essential Oyster.' I blurbed a pretty good book… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
The entire trendy foodie world - food writing, food television, celebrated restaurants - is all about food for the rich. But the most important… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
One of the truly horrible things about the Holocaust is that it doesn't end in 1945. It keeps affecting our lives in the way… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
It's true that writing and pastry-making are similar, but when you work as a pastry chef, you can get a kind of mania that… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
Food is interesting to me because it's a way of understanding culture and societies and history. I would never write about food just as… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
THE ROMANS SALTED their greens, believing this to counteract the natural bitterness, which is the origin of the word salad, salted. — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
Religion is a big problem in Israel and the Arab world, but again, the problem isn't religion but political leaders who want to use… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
“It is a peculiarity of the English language that while most fish swim in schools, herring swim in shoals, a word of the same… — Mark Kurlansky Copy Share Image
