Picky Quotes

“Describing our romantic longings in 'Life preserves,' therapist Harriet Lerner shares that most people want a partner 'who is mature and intelligent, loyal and trustworthy, loving and attentive, sensitive and open, kind and nurturant, competent and responsible.' No matter the intensity of this desire, she concludes: 'Few of us evaluate a prospective partner with the same objectivity and clarity that we might use to select a household appliance or a car.' To be capable of critically evaluating a partner we would need to be able to stand back and look critically at ourselves, at our needs, desires, and longings..... We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love. Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking then no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“CUSTOMER: Is your poetry section split up into rhyming and non-rhyming sections?

BOOKSELLER: No, it’s just in alphabetical order. What kind of poetry are you looking for?

CUSTOMER: Rhyming. Preferably iambic pentameter, in poems of no more than ten lines, by a female poet. But, other than that, I don’t mind.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“A woman being able to make a man genuinely laugh leaves a much better impression on him than a woman who wants them to feel like she is nothing more than a sex object… believe me, they tend to not be as picky as you might think when it comes to that.”
― Heather Chapple, Write like no one is reading

“If you were picky about who you worked with in the Wild North, you'd be quickly left with no one to choose. You could try to pick the best of them, but you'd have to dig them up first.”
― Dean F. Wilson, Dustrunner

“I only read books with words on the pages. I'm picky like that.”
― Alex G Zarate

“But Stanley persisted in the kitchen, performing the small yet demanding apprentice's tasks she set for him- removing the skin from piles of almonds, grating snowy hills of lemon zest, the nightly sweeping of the kitchen floor and sponging of metal shelves. He didn't seem to mind: every day after school, he'd lean over the counter, watching her experiment with combinations- shifting flavors like the beads in a kaleidoscope- burnt sugar, hibiscus, rum, espresso, pear: dessert as a metaphor for something unresolvable. It was nothing like the slapdashery of cooking. Baking, to Avis, was no less precise than chemistry: an exquisite transfiguration. Every night, she lingered in the kitchen, analyzing her work, jotting notes, describing the way ingredients nestled: a slim layer of black chocolate hidden at the bottom of a praline tart, the essence of lavender stirred into a bowl of preserved wild blueberries. Stanley listened to his mother think out loud: he asked her questions and made suggestions- like mounding lemon meringue between layers of crisp pecan wafers- such a success that her corporate customers ordered it for banquets and company retreats.
On the day Avis is thinking of, she sat in the den where they watched TV, letting her hand swim over the silk of her daughter's hair, imagining a dessert pistou of blackberry, creme fraiche, and nutmeg, in which floated tiny vanilla croutons. Felice was her audience, Avis's picky eater- difficult to please. Her "favorites" changed capriciously and at times, it seemed, deliberately, so that after Avis set out what once had been, in Felice's words, "the best ever"- say, a miniature roulade Pavlova with billows of cream and fresh kumquat- Felice would announce that she was now "tired" of kumquats.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise

“Gabriel Solomon, our sandy-lashed, red-haired, soon-to-be-surgeon waiter, recited the night's menu: salad, broiled salmon, boiled red potatoes, sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob, all served family style. A vast slab of butter lay on a white plate next to baskets of bread- white Wonder bread and buttermilk biscuits, neither of which had ever touched our lips. There was a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup in the center of the table, a novelty for Jews who didn't mix dairy foods with meat. "The milk is from the farm's cows," Gabe explained. "It's pasteurized but it doesn't taste like city milk. If you'd like city milk, it will be delivered to you. But try the farm milk. Some guests love it. The children seem to enjoy it with syrup." Gabe paused. "I forgot to ask you, do you want your salad dressed or undressed?" Jack immediately replied, "Undressed of course," and winked.
My mother worried about having fish with rolls and butter. "Fish is dairy," my father pronounced, immediately an expert on Jewish dietary laws. "With meat it's no butter and no milk for the children."
Lil kept fidgeting in her straight-backed chair. "What kind of food is this?" she asked softly. "What do they call it?"
"American," the two men said in unison.
Within minutes Gabe brought us a bowl filled with iceberg lettuce, butter lettuce, red oak lettuce. "These are grown right here, in our own garden. We pick the greens daily. I brought you some oil and vinegar on the side, and a gravy boat of sour cream for the tomatoes. Take a look at these tomatoes." Each one was the size of a small melon, blood red, virtually seedless. Our would-be surgeon sliced them, one-two-three. We had not encountered such tomatoes before. "Beauties, aren't they?" asked Gabe.
Jack held to certain eccentricities in his summer food. Without fail he sprinkled sugar over tomatoes, sugared his melons no matter how ripe and spread his corn with mustard- mustard!”
― Eleanor Widmer, Up from Orchard Street

“I went with something simple- whitefish slow cooked in butter on low heat!
That way the fish keeps all its delicate texture with added moisture and buttery flavor!
Well? Whaddya think?!"
"The natural flavors of the ingredients are adequately retained, yes."
"YEAH! AIN'T THEY?"
"However...
while cooking in butter on low heat does give the fish extra juiciness, the flavor becomes too thick and heavy. Did it not even occur to you to add something tangy like wine vinegar to properly rebalance the flavors? That is an egregious failing.
Not only that, you used Vin Juane and Macvin du Jura wines in the sauce, correct? That you neglected to come up with some means of accenting the nutty bouquet unique to those yellow wines is another failing.
As for your garnish, the hints of buckwheat flour in the Crozet pasta do not at all go with the Comté cheese. More negative points.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 17 [Shokugeki no Souma 17]

“Yeah, babe. A good surprise. What kind of boyfriends do you think we are?”

“Boyfriends,” I parrot.

“Not the word you’d pick?” Anakin asks, knowing me far too well.

“It’s too simple of a word.”

He nods and rests his chin on my shoulder. “How about husbands?”

“Too human.”

“Mates?”

“What are we, werewolves?”

He chuckles. “Well then, what do you want to call us?”

I frown. “I don’t know, mine?”
― Rory Miles, Tainted Power - The Complete Series

“I pick my books like I pick my meals. However, I'm an extremely picky eater so that changes things.”
― Zoe Surratt