Michael Pollan Quotes

The whole banquet is in the first spoonful.

Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

The appetite is sharpened by the first bites.

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.

You'll like this, not a lot, but you'll like it.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

So if I have two pieces of cake, do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake? One of the things I've found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.

Are we having fun yet?

The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and more animalistic, such as the satisfaction of hunger and lust.

Eating is one of the great pleasures of life.

A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

No matter how beautiful a spot I find myself in, if the food ain't up to much, I won't enjoy myself.

Sure, I eat because I have to. But I also eat because I want to. It is one of life's few pleasures.

Anticipation makes pleasure more intense

Often, the most enjoyable part of an activity is the anticipation.

I could not conjure up one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne.

to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

I don't want to find the secret. I'm afraid all the joy will go out of it if I find the secret.

It's nice to have things to look forward to.

That in all these worldly Things, that a Man pursues with the greatest Eagerness and Intention of Mind imaginable, he finds not half the Pleasure in the actual Possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the Expectation.

Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.

There is satiety in all things, in sleep, and love-making, in the loveliness of singing and the innocent dance.

Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure.

Anticipation was the soul of enjoyment.