Top 102 Quotes & Sayings by Prue Leith - Page 2

It takes several doses of any veg before children like it, but once they do they'll like it for life. You wouldn't give up on a child who didn't want to learn to read. Learning to eat is every bit as important.

Any woman will tell you after the menopause, nobody whistle at her, well - that's just the beginning. As you get older people don't want you at their parties, we all are prejudiced about old people.

I try to spend most weekends in the Cotswolds, having fun.

I was asked if I would do 'Dancing On Ice.' I thought it'd be the perfect way to get fit, lose a lot of weight and learn a new skill. I was actually quite excited, but my team said, 'Absolutely not.' They told me I was far too old and if I fell over I would break something - and then I thought they were probably right.

I think the BBC likes to have Mary Berry and me around to rebut the charge of ageism.

Nothing beats that sloppy kiss of a six-month-old grandchild.

If I'm going to do something, I'll do it properly or not at all.

I'd love to look incredibly glamorous, but I am a wholesome, comforting nanny type: I think I look like an advertisement for wholemeal flour or something.

I prefer pub food to posh food.

I go to Michelin-starred restaurants as part of my job, but that's not how I want to eat all the time.

I won't eat something which is high in calories and not particularly wonderful, because that's just not worth it, you feel guilty after.

I'm a good cook, I am not a great cook. I'm an absolute fraud.

I have never managed to put my feet up, ever.

I've always had an image of Mother's Pride flour, very respectable and middle-class.

I don't like Johannesburg, where I grew up. Everybody lives in 'gated' buildings, is paranoid about crime and is always talking about being mugged. It's not a very joyful place.

My grandchildren love cooking, and it doesn't have to be sweet things.

I vividly remember throwing a bowl of porridge at my husband Rayne once when he defended the children instead of me - the patch on the ceiling stayed for years.

I'm not saying I'm proud of the fact I had a long affair with a married man, but it did help my business. By the time I married and had children I had the business under my belt.

Modern cookbooks are marketing tools for chefs. They're in the bestseller lists but no one cooks from them.

I think Paul Hollywood was quite perfectly within his rights to stay with Love Productions. They'd made him famous, he was getting a decent salary and he was enjoying it. Why shouldn't he stay with them?

It's tough to eat well if you don't know how to cook.

The way to get to like good food is by learning to cook, which is why I'm for ever banging on about children learning to cook.

I was elated when I found out my first novel, 'Leaving Patrick,' about a woman who walks out on her husband, was going to be published.

I am very in favour of children having a nap after lunch because then they're not whiney and grizzly by six o'clock.

I couldn't live without my faithful companion, Megs the dog.

I would have my last meal at my home in Oxfordshire.

Hua Hin is Thailand's royal beach resort and home to the king's summer palace. The local food is fantastic, the weather is beautiful, everything's cheap and the Thai people are so friendly and warm.

It's so nice to slip into the lap of luxury.

I have strong hair, so if I've had a good haircut, I can wash my hair in the bath and not worry about it.

If I am tanned, I feel a million times better.

In my 40s: I had two children young enough to think their parents wonderful, my business was booming, I was happily married and living in the Cotswolds with a veg garden and ponies in the paddock. Who could not be happy?

I went to the Sorbonne in Paris for two years and read all the classics by authors like Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant. I was supposed to read them in French but I cheated and used the English versions instead.

I believe in good, honest food. That's always been my ethos.

I'm quite lazy. I don't want to learn a new subject like shipbuilding.

I am not saying celebrity chefs don't encourage children to cook. However, their programmes are so entertaining, you end up stuffing your face with Pot Noodles instead of learning from them.

I love writing fiction and can do it anywhere - I once even missed a flight because I was so engrossed.

At barbecues, people just like to eat a lot of meat; it's extraordinary. They eat far more than they normally would at a dinner party.

The really nice thing about the town of Hua Hin - and Thailand generally - is that it's so safe. You can walk around the night market, for example, with complete confidence.

With great difficulty, I persuaded my dentist to saw one of my teeth level with the others. He thought it might kill the tooth, but it didn't. I wanted it done because I was doing a lot of television with food and I saw myself eating with these horrible crooked teeth.

After opening my first restaurant in 1969, one of the regular customers suggested I write a cookbook, so I did. Then another. After my 12th one, I started to feel stale.

It sounds boring, but anything is easy to start-starting a novel, starting a business ... it's keeping the thing going that is difficult.

Don't spend time with anyone you don't like.