DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Comedy of Errors, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 65ff (4.3.65-66) (1594)
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The phrase was popularized by Shakespeare, but had appeared earlier, e.g., Chaucer, "The Squire's Tale," ll. 602-603, Canterbury Tales (c. 1386):"Therfor bihoveth him a ful long spoon
That shal ete with a feend," thus herde I seye.
Quotations about:
dining
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There is no known correct way to eat pistachio nuts. Nevertheless, they are delicious. The pistachio nut must therefore be Nature’s way of teaching us self-control. If so, it doesn’t work.
Eating without conversation is only stoking.
Marcelene Cox (1900-1998) American writer, columnist, aphorist
“Ask Any Woman” column, Ladies’ Home Journal (1943-06)
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When you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means “an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking.” Although lately, it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and bad conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. “Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?” for instance, is a very poor conversational opener because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as “What would drive a man to commit arson?,” “Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?,” and “Madam DeLustrio, I believe I’ve discovered your true identity!” all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining.
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Grim Grotto (2004)
Queerly shaped pieces of flat silver, contrived for purposes known only to their designers, have no place on a well appointed table. So if you use one of these implements for a purpose not intended, it cannot be a breach of etiquette, since etiquette is founded on tradition, and has no rules concerning eccentricities.
Emily Post (1872-1960) American author, columnist [née Price]
Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage, ch. 37 “Flat Silver” (1922; 1927 ed.)
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You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity ….
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Fate,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 1 (1860)
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Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day.Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
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At the end of a recipe for highly praised potato salad dressing.
Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American writer [b. Nelson Ahlgren Abraham]
A Walk on the Wild Side, ch. 3 (1956)
