The Best Oyster Quotes. Ever.

March 2025 - One of the highlights of my journey has been the way people think of me whenever they see something about oysters. This year for the holidays, I received multiple oyster ornaments, an oyster dish, even an oyster makeup bag. Lately, I’ve most enjoyed the gift of a good oyster quote. Here are the best ones so far.

“What is an oyster if not the perfect food? It requires no preparation or cooking. Cooking would be an affront.

It provides its own sauce. It’s a living thing until seconds before disappearing down your throat, so you know – or should know – that it’s fresh.

It appears on your plate as God created it: raw, unadorned.

A squeeze of lemon, or maybe a little mignonette sauce (red wine vinegar, cracked black pepper, some finely chopped shallot), about as much of an insult as you might care to tender against this magnificent creature.

It is food at its most primeval and glorious, untouched by time or man.

A living thing, eaten for sustenance and pleasure, the same way our knuckle-dragging forefathers ate them.

And they have, for me anyway, the added mystical attraction of all that sense memory – the significance of being the first food to change my life.

I blame my first oyster for everything I did after: my decision to become a chef, my thrill-seeking, all my hideous screwups in pursuit of pleasure.

I blame it all on that oyster. In a nice way, of course.”

―Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

How does it happen,
how do we know,
who sits and watches
who does the show?
some people love to lead
and some refuse to dance.
some play it safely, other take a chance.
still it's all a mystery
this place we call the world
where most live as oysters
while some become pearls.

―Jimmy Buffet, Oysters and Pearls.