Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Joey Chestnut

I think food brings people together, and it makes people happy.

I don't really get hungry that much. Sometimes I get cravings for certain foods. But I can go all day without eating.

If I'm going to get up on stage to eat hot dogs, I'm not going to do it to get third or fourth.

I can't always go out to a restaurant and have a normal dinner.

There's no better feeling than beating someone who's up on a high horse.

My birthday is always around Thanksgiving, and I always had to have turkey on my birthday. My mom was always, 'Let's celebrate your birthday on Thanksgiving.' My other siblings got to have special dinners they liked. I resented turkey. For a long time, I hated turkey. I've kind of gotten over it.

The bigger the crowd, the more likely I'll do whatever it takes to win.

I think my body was built to eat 68 hot dogs. It's natural.

My weight does fluctuate, and there are extreme highs and lows in my blood sugar, so there is some worry about diabetes.

I like going to the doctor, being vigilant, being told that I'm healthy so I can push myself.

I think Peter King... he's kind of narrow-minded.

I was awful my first time. I was so shy eating in front of people. It was so awkward. But my next contest, I brought a bunch of my family out, and I won that one. I remember I almost barfed because my mom, at the end of the contest, she yelled out, 'Do it for Mama!' Everybody laughed. It was one of the closest I've ever been to barfing.

I've learned how to gnarl the food down. It's not pretty.

It was a hard decision to give up a normal job. I worked hard to get through school. You go from building a fire station to an eating contest.

I've strained some muscles here and there, in my throat, even my jaw. Nothing that doesn't heal quickly.

They don't sell the Nathan's hot dogs hardly anywhere in the West Coast. So I have to special order them, and I just end up getting Nathan's to ship them to me.

Going into a contest, I do not eat solid food and take in minimal calories for days, so I am hungry.

There have been times when things get stuck in my throat, but you just work it up or down. Like how a swimmer probably can't imagine drowning - their bodies are so used to being in the water. I'm so used to shoving things down my throat.

I love food, and not surprisingly, I often suffer from stomach upsets when I overeat in general, let alone when I'm competing.

I can't tell you all my secrets to how I can eat so many. Someone out there might copy it. But I will tell you this: The night before the competition, I sleep only four hours. That means when I actually do eat, my stomach will want to digest the food quicker.

I'm really normal except for the competitive eating.

It's pretty rare for me to be someplace that serves hot dogs and not eat one.

You need to stay calm the day of the contest. Not let the weather bother me and just relax.

I know I hold the contest record for downing the most hot dogs, and the record for most Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Contest championships, but it was really cool to be a part of a Guinness World Records official attempt.

I was able to get a civil engineering degree and travel around the world and eat.

I usually stay away from sweets.

When I'm eating I try to make sure I can breathe through my nose the entire time. If I have to breathe through my mouth, there's no way I'm eating or swallowing.

It's more of a mental sport because I know I can push harder than someone who doesn't know what his body can do.

I love to eat internationally and do eating contests everywhere. Traveling around, meeting people, and doing different things.

The way I see it, I love to eat more than anybody.

It wasn't like I grew up wanting to be a competitive eater at all. Not like a lot of people, like football players, famous people - they knew that that's what they wanted to do when they were young.

Mom only gets angry when I don't visit her enough. She raised six kids to be 100 percent independent and work for everything we achieve. I mean, we don't expect anything for free.

After a contest, I try to eat fairly healthy.

It's pretty rare for them to not be in our fridge, I have usually a good supply of all-beef hot dogs.

There's nothing pretty about competitive eating. It might be uncouth, but it is fun, and it is lighthearted.

The weather in New York, it fluctuates so much. Some days it's humid, some days you have a thunderstorm.

I love king crab a lot. I love good Mexican food, good tacos, and chile rellenos.

I think the traveling is what drew me into 'The Amazing Race' years ago.

There are competitive people who love to push their body but don't love to eat like I do.

I was 21, and I was in college, and I'd eat real healthy during the week, and then on the weekends I would reward myself, and I'd just go to town on whatever my parents had in the fridge. And my little brother would be like, 'Hey.' And so it was actually him that begged me to do my first contest.

If I can train for a contest for a week, it's a guaranteed victory.

I go to the doctor every four months to get my blood work done to make sure everything is working right.

When I'm in training, I eat no solid food except hot dogs for six weeks.

It's addicting, beating the heck out of people and eating hot dogs and making people smile. I do feel like garbage afterwards, but so what? Most people feel like garbage after a long day of work.

There are times when I'm not eating buns if I'm on a low carb diet. I'll have hot dogs and romaine lettuce, but if I'm at a baseball game, I'm always eating a hot dog.

I have the craziest dreams when I'm digesting a massive amount. It feels so real, it's psychedelic.

I'd like to go out on top, preferably breaking a new world record on the Fourth of July.

I love to eat! I don't think I have ever gotten sick of eating a food, unless it is bad food.

Make sure I'm chewing, swallowing, and breathing, my whole body is working together. I can just find a rhythm and keep going and going and going. It's my love of food.

Maybe in America there's more of an emphasis on food than there should be. But when I look out at the audience during a competition, some people are shocked, but most people are smiling.

I've signed babies' arms. I wanted to pull a 'Ricky Bobby' and sign a baby's forehead.

Every time you learn you can do something, you can go a little bit faster next time.

I lose now and then. I get lazy. And sometimes I work just hard enough to win.

The crowd loves a record, and if they're gonna be standing out there in crazy, blistering heat on the 4th of July, I mean, if they're doing it, I may as well try and give them a record.

So now I'm 'the hot dog guy,' which isn't bad. I take it in stride. It's not like it was my goal in life. I'm having fun with it.

I love Italian food, such as pasta or lasagna.

Everything at a baseball game is pretty much health food if you subscribe to the theory that you're eating what makes you happy.

It was hard for me to take competitive eating serious at first. When I made people happy, I became addicted to that. It's been a fun, fun ride.

I'm lucky. My parents are, like, super hippies. They were just happy I was going to school and I wasn't getting in trouble.

It's always a battle to maintain my weight.