Writers Express Their Opinions About the Revered Bean
“The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar and its different preparations,” said Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, adding “of alcoholic liquors, of wines, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.”
“Actually, this seems to be the basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis,” said Alexander King, “a good hot cup of coffee.”
“Coffee: Induces wit. Good only if it comes through Havre,” said Gustave Flaubert, adding, “After a big dinner party it is taken standing up. Take it without sugar - very swank: gives the impression you have lived in the East.”
“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee,” said Anne Spencer, “and just as hard.”
“Coffee is a beverage,” said Alphonse Allais, “that puts one to sleep when not drank.”
“Persons drinking coffee, as a general rule, east less, though coffee, and also tea, have little direct food value,” said Maria Parloa in the 1881 Appledore Cookbook adding, “but they retard the waste of the tissues, and so take the place of food.”
“Almost all of my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me,” wrote Martha Beck, “feel about 25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.”
“For fifteen days I struggled to prove that no functions analogous to those I have since called Fuchsian functions could exist; I was then very ignorant,” wrote Henri Poincare in Science et Methode, adding “ “Every day I sat down at my work table where I spent an hour or two; I tried a great number of combinations and arrived at no result. One evening, contrary to my custom, I took black coffee.” Poincare continued, “I could not go to sleep; ideas swarmed up in clouds; I sensed them clashing until, to put it so, a pair would hook together to form a stable condition. By morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions, those derived from the hypergeometric series. I had only to write up the results which took me a few hours.”
“His most frequent ailment,” said Dr. Johnson in The Life of Pope, “was the headache which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee.”
“Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “are weak dilutions; the surest poison is time.”
“We plan, we toil, we suffer in the hope of what?” asked J.B. Priestley, adding “A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake just in time to smell the coffee and bacon and eggs.”
“Physicians say that coffee without cream is more wholesome, particularly for persons of weak digestion,” said The Buckeye Cookbook in 1883, adding “There seems to be some element in the coffee which combined with the milk, forms a leathery coating on the stomach and impairs digestion.”
“Moderately drunk, coffee removes vapours from the brain, occasioned by fumes of wine, or other strong liquors,” said the 1699 work England's Happiness Improved, adding “eases pains in the head, prevents sour belchings, and provokes appetite.”
“Coffee is the best thing,” said Drew Sirtors, “to douse the sunrise with.”
“There are no gods in my coffee cup,” said Tony Lawrence.
“It is the folly of too many,” wrote Jonathan Swift in The Conduct of Allies, “to mistake the echo of a London coffeehouse for the voice of the kingdom.”
“The discovery of coffee has enlarged the realm of illusion,” Isidore Bourdon stated, “and given more promise to hope.”
“American lacks the decadence required for truly great coffee,” said the Great Food Almanac, “But we're acquiring it, I think.”
“The history of coffee houses, ere the invention of clubs,” wrote Isaac D'Israeli, “was that of manners, the morals and the politics of a people.”
“Only on thing is certain about coffee,” said Mark Pendergrast, “Wherever it is grown, sold, brewed, and consumed, there will be lively controversy, strong opinions, and good conversation.”
“I work full time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think,” said Kate DiCamillo, adding “The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.”
Also see World's Best Coffee Quotes
For the history of espresso and coffee see World's Best History of Coffee, and for a complete list of coffee terminology with detailed definitions see the Espresso Coffee Guides Coffee Terms.
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