Backstage Gourmet Quotes

Share your favorite vegetarian/vegan-related notable and quotable

"Animals do not 'give' their life to us, as the sugar-coated lie would have it. No, we take their lives. They struggle and fight to the last breath, just as we would do if we were in their place." -- John Robbins

"To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana." -- Buddha

"Our 7-year-old daughter, Maggie, is our all-natural girl. Anything to do with nature and anything that breathes and walks and moves, she wants it. And she informed us the other day that she's gonna be a vegetarian. She just woke up one morning and said, 'I'm gonna be a vegetarian,' and she has been one ever since." -- Faith Hill

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of `real food for real people,' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." -- Neal D. Barnard, M.D.

"If any kid ever realized what was involved in factory farming they would never touch meat again. I was so moved by the intelligence, sense of fun and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian." -- James Cromwell

"Common sense tells us, and we know in our hearts, that our fellow animals have the same kind of feelings and desires that we do and that we should not kill and hurt others in order to eat them." -- PETA

"Whether I'm having a pan bagnia sandwich (olive tapenade, roasted red peppers, basil and onions, on ciabatta bread) at Teany, my restaurant, or having marinated exotic mushrooms with mixed baby greens and an orange vinaigrette in Paris, or having fajitas in Los Angeles, or vegan Chinese food in lower Manhattan, or vegan Pad Thai in Melbourne, or etc., etc., I'm always a very happy eater." -- Moby

"Compassion is the foundation of everything positive, everything good. If you carry the power of compassion to the marketplace and the dinner table, you can make your life really count." -- Rue McClanahan

"Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging is such acts of brutality." -- His Holiness the XLV Dalai Lama

"A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher's stall passes as food." -- John Harvey Kellogg, M.D.

"It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh-meat of any kind is essential to health. Considerably more than three parts of the work in the world is done by men who never taste anything but vegetable, farinaceous food, and that of the simplest kind. There are more strength-producing properties in wholemeal flour, peas, beans, lentils, oatmeal, roots, and other vegetables of the same class, than there are beef or mutton, poultry or fish, or animal food of any description whatever." -- William and Catherine Booth (Salvation Army founders)

"Veganism acknowledges the intrinsic legitimacy of all life. It recognizes no hierarchy of acceptable suffering among sentient creatures. It is no more acceptable to kill creatures with primitive nervous systems than those with highly developed nervous systems. The value of life to its possessor is the same, whether it be the life of the clam, a crayfish, a carp, a cow, a chicken, or child." -- Stanley Sapon

"Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough." -- Saint Francis of Assisi

"Many things made me become a vegetarian, among them, the higher food yield as a solution to world hunger." -- John Denver

"When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give." -- Benjamin Franklin

"In this day and age, it is important for us to consider vegetarianism, not only for health reasons, but also for the good of the planet. We all know the environmental implications of the increasing dependency of Western civilization on a meat diet. Furthermore, we are aware of how depending on beef has diminished the amount of protein that would otherwise be available to the general population." -- Tony Campolo

"I have been a vegetarian for about 10 years. And it really was due to the reading that I did. And they explain so that you understand why it's important for the planet's survival along with compassion for animals. It certainly made it much easier for me. I lost weight really fast. My mother died from cancer so this is all very personal to me. And I just would like the planet to be a better place. And I think you'll find a vegetarian diet to be really incredible these days." -- Linda Blair

"I don't like the idea that to have a piece of steak or chop on the table, a live creature has to have its throat slit and be skinned." -- Paul McCartney

"Thanks be to God! Since the time I gave up the use of flesh-meats and wine, I have been delivered from all physical ills." -- John Wesley

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." -- Immanuel Kant

"When I was old enough to realize all meat was killed, I saw it as an irrational way of using our power, to take a weaker thing and mutilate it. It was like the way bullies would take control of younger kids in the schoolyard." -- River Phoniex

"The lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of the lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless the creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"I'm in good health and people want to know what I do to be this way. Vegetarian is a slippery word. I don't eat cheese, I don't eat duck; the point is, I'm vegan." -- Grace Slick

"I don't eat any animals or anything that has to do with animals. No fish or egg or dairy because I personally don't feel it's a good practice to eat anything that might run away from you." -- Russell Simmons

"As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"I've been a vegetarian for years and years. I'm not judgmental about others who aren't, I just feel I cannot eat or wear living creatures." -- Drew Barrymore

"As we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat down to steaks. I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the first bite. And spit it out." -- Alice Walker

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Right afterward I read Fast Food Nation. That book changed my life: It made me a vegetarian." -- Amber Tamblyn

"Every time we go by KFC, my kids ask me to honk and they yell 'Boo' out the window." -- Pamela Anderson

"When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings." -- William C. Roberts, M.D.

"As soon as I realized that I didn't need meat to survive or to be in good health, I began to see how forlorn it all is. If only we had a different mentality about the drama of the cowboy and the range and all the rest of it. It's a very romantic notion, an entrenched part of American culture, but I've seen, for example, pigs waiting to be slaughtered, and their hysteria and panic was something I shall never forget." -- Cloris Leachman

"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." -- John Muir

"I have reached zero tolerance for the cruelty against our animal brothers. If we are to nuture our culture, let’s begin with the animals who have been nothing but our beasts of burden for so long." -- Riki Rockett

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." -- Thomas Edison

"We are all God's creatures; that we pray to God for mercy and justice while we continue to eat the flesh of animals that are slaughtered on our account is not consistent." -- Isaac Bashevis Singer

"If you could see or feel the suffering you wouldn't think twice. Give back life. Don't eat meat." -- Kim Basinger

"What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" --
Jeremy Bentham

"I brainwashed youngsters into doing wrong. I want to say sorry to children everywhere for selling out to concerns who make millions by murdering animals." -- Geoffrey Guiliano (the main Ronald McDonald actor in the 1980's who quit and publicly apologized)

"All red meat contains saturated fat. There is no such thing as truly lean meat. Trimming away the edge ring of fat around a steak really does not lower the fat content significantly. People who have red meat (trimmed or untrimmed) as a regular feature of their diets suffer in far greater numbers from heart attacks and strokes." -- Michael Klaper, M.D.

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." -- Abraham Lincoln

Replace the dairy with cow-friendly “fakes” -- Oprah’s fave is soy cheese! Large supermarkets and health food stores stock a variety of dairy-free foods like soy, almond, rice and other “milks” (in chocolate and vanilla flavors, too!); tofu “sour cream” and cream “cheese"; melt-in-your-mouth nondairy frozen desserts; and dark chocolate. PETA’s pick: dairy-free desserts like raspberry and blueberry “Teasecakes” from California’s Now & Zen restaurant...ask your grocer to stock them.

Notable & Quotable

Try one -- or all -- of our tasty Backstage Gourmet Sampler plates. Simply click on the link and enjoy!

Sampler Plate 1

Frankie Laine's Lentil-Spinach Salad; Anoushka Shankar's Ginger Potatoes; Danny Schneider's Grilled Eggplant & Peppers Parmesan; and Boni Lonnsburry's Heavenly Ambrosia

Sampler 2 -- Coming soon!
Sampler 3 -- Coming soon!
Sampler 4 -- Coming soon!

Thank you so much for stopping by. If you have any suggestions, comments, or questions about The Backstage Gourmet CyberCafe or Backstage Gourmet Cookbook, we'd love to hear from you. Namaste. Send PJ an email