Anthony Bourdain: I'm sure I'm not alone here. Were clowns ever funny?...

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

Anthony Bourdain

change life travel

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.

Anthony Bourdain

enlightenment mind mean

If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

Anthony Bourdain

ocean travel moving

As you move through this life...you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you.

Anthony Bourdain

return travel moving

Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain

enlightenment finals mind

your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.

Anthony Bourdain

amusement body food

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

Anthony Bourdain

taught skills character

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

Anthony Bourdain

tribes grandma feelings

Recognise excellence. Celebrate weirdness and innovation. Oddballs should be cherished, if they can do something other people can't do.

Anthony Bourdain

innovation excellence people

You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

Anthony Bourdain

meals share together

Regret is something you’ve got to just live with, you can’t drink it away. You can’t run away from it. You can’t trick yourself out of it. You’ve just got to own it.

Anthony Bourdain

drink regret running

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.

Anthony Bourdain

hurt beautiful travel

In that sense, what a great way to live, if you could always do things that interest you, and do them with people who interest you.

Anthony Bourdain

way-to-live interest people

Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.

Anthony Bourdain

assuming self jobs

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

Anthony Bourdain

fabulous simple food

Free time is my enemy. I recognized early on I'm not a guy who should have a lot of time to contemplate the mysteries of the universe. I need to stay busy... That's just the nature of my demons.

Anthony Bourdain

guy should-have enemy

No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.

Anthony Bourdain

appreciate hard-work dream

That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.

Anthony Bourdain

static food trying

In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful. ... With the best restaurants in New York, you'll find something similar to it in Paris or Copenhagen or Chicago. But there is no place like New Orleans. So it's a must-see city because there's no explaining it, no describing it. You can't compare it to anything. So, far and away New Orleans.

Anthony Bourdain

new-orleans cities new-york

If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.

Anthony Bourdain

sleep two travel

I'm sure I'm not alone here. Were clowns ever funny? No. Of course not. They were always sinister figures, disguising their homicidal intentions under thick make-up, all the while their crawl spaces and chest freezers were brimming with Cub Scout parts.