Eric Ripert Quotes

I love the look of books published by the firm of Rupert Hart-Davis: They strike me as handsome, elegant, and inviting. I'll pick up almost anything with that imprint, especially if it's in a jacket or priced low.

At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all fashions, these changing features fix a precise quality onto a book's definition. I judge a book by its cover; I judge a book by its shape.

Why wouldn't - how couldn't - an author care about how his or her books look?

A book on cheap paper does not convince. It is not prized, it is like a wheezy doctor with pigtail tobacco breath, who needs a manicure.

As an object itself, to me, books today are such a rare entity - I want mine to be something where, if left on the kitchen table, a child could pick it up. It can visually tell a story.

I steer clear of books with ugly covers. And ones that are touted as 'sweeping,' 'tender' or 'universal.'

I always try to treat the book itself as the artwork. I don't want you to stop while you're reading one of my books and say, 'Oh! What a gorgeous illustration!' I want you to stop at the end of the book and say, 'This is a good book.

There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.

Every book should begin with attractive endpapers. Preferably in a dark colour: dark red or dark blue, depending on the binding. When you open the book it's like going to the theatre. First you see the curtain. Then it's pulled aside and the show begins.

In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.

We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.

I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness; and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.

I wanted to do something really visual and photogenic.

In the history of art there are periods when bread seems so beautiful that it nearly gets into museums.

I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape.

One is attracted to beauty. Beauty is the coordination of things, in such a way, that it is what attracts you. It's almost self-defining.

In the candle's flickering light, the library's thousands of books emerged from the shadows, and for a moment Nicholas could not help admiring them again. During free time he had almost never looked up from the pages he was reading, but now he saw the books anew, from without rather than from within, and was reminded of how beautiful they were simply as objects. The geometrical wonder of them all, each book on its own and all the books together, row upon row, the infinite patterns and possibilities they presented. They were truly lovely.

Attractive things work better When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn’t it? Or at least feels like it does.

Proportion is the heart of beauty.

The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion.

Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point

The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order.

That was excellent! I mean, it didn't do anything, but it looked really cool!

I've always been a big fan of beauty. Sure, you can't judge a book by its cover but who wants to have sex with a book?

There is no beauty without order.