I would like to know what politicians eat on the campaign trail, what Picasso ate in his pink period, what Walt Whitman ate while writing the verse that defined America, what mid-westerners bring to potlucks, what is served at company banquets, what is in a Sunday dinner these days, and what workers bring for lunch.

Mark Kurlansky

Havana, for all its smells, sweat, crumbling walls, isolation, and difficult history, is the most romantic city in the world.

Mark Kurlansky

The Pilgrims were unified by their religious zeal, but they couldn't fish, they didn't know how to hunt, and they were bad at farming. In fact, they never had a good harvest until they learned to fish cod and plow the waste in the ground as fertilizer.

Mark Kurlansky

The Negro League had some of the best players in history. Satchel Paige was probably one of the best pitchers in the history of baseball, and many believe catcher Josh Gibson was a better hitter than Babe Ruth.

Mark Kurlansky

Cheap fish has usually been caught in careless ways.

Mark Kurlansky

Baseball players are not specialists; they all have to do it all. That is why I, and many aficionados, dislike the American League's practice of replacing the pitcher with a designated hitter. This creates two players who do not have to do it all.

Mark Kurlansky

Paper is at the center of so many of the elements of the development of civilization.

Mark Kurlansky

The environmental movement does not always have to be about stopping things. It can be about fixing problems.

Mark Kurlansky

People motivated by fear do not act well.

Mark Kurlansky

Environmentalists aren't nearly sensitive enough to the fact that they are messing around with struggling people and their livelihoods. They forget that the fishermen are the people with the most immediate vested interest in having a healthy sea.

Mark Kurlansky

I'm interested in most everything.

Mark Kurlansky

I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.

Mark Kurlansky

Let's face it: the 19th century really was the great age of the novel - Melville, Hawthorne, Tolstoy. These are the people I really admire.

Mark Kurlansky

I'm an urban person.

Mark Kurlansky

Things that become important to economies become ritualized and become deified. Because I'm Jewish, I always thought it was interesting that in Judaism, salt seals a bargain, particularly the covenant with God. Some people, when they bless bread, they dip it in salt. Same thing exists in Islam.

Mark Kurlansky

I always wanted to write a book about a common food that becomes a commercial commodity and therefore becomes economically important and therefore becomes politically important and culturally important. That whole process is very interesting to me. And salt seemed to me the best example of that, partly because it's universal.

Mark Kurlansky

I was a theatre major and started off as a playwright.

Mark Kurlansky

It's harder to kill off fish than mammals. But after 1,000 years of hunting the Atlantic cod, we know that it can be done.

Mark Kurlansky

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

I grew up in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of fighting. It's what boys did during school, during recess, after school. And I was a fairly large kid. So everyone wanted to see if they could take me on.

Mark Kurlansky

I blurbed a nice book, not at all like my book 'The Big Oyster,' called 'The Essential Oyster.' I blurbed a pretty good book about meat called 'Meathooked.'

Mark Kurlansky