I’m an omniviorous reader, but I don’t read what could overlap with my own work. It’s like tuning a radio frequency – it’s much harder to pick up if there’s something else there. John Lanchester Read Quote
Obviously you can stash money under your mattress, cut down on hazelnut lattes, but in terms of the larger economic frame of our lives, we have very little agency. About one of the only things you can do is understand it. John Lanchester Read Quote
The economics of setting up a new restaurant are scary in good times and terrifying in bad ones. John Lanchester Read Quote
The early-’80s recession was good for good restaurants, not least because it put bad ones out of business. John Lanchester Read Quote
One of the things I have noticed about my novels is that they all concern people who can’t quite bring themselves to tell the truth about their own lives… I’ve come to realise that this interest in damaged, untellable stories comes from my parents. John Lanchester Read Quote
France and Britain have large culinary differences, but one thing they do share is a relatively low tolerance for modernist cooking. John Lanchester Read Quote
At the risk of being old-fartish, I like old-school wines that taste the way the winemaker intended, as opposed to organic and untreated ones with more bottle variation. If I want to take a risk, I’ll go bungee-jumping. John Lanchester Read Quote
Money isn’t automatically freedom. You need to look carefully at what you’re doing to earn the money before you can conclude that you are, in practice, free. This is a cost-benefit analysis we should all perform on our own lives. John Lanchester Read Quote
In sport, the money goes to the talent; it goes directly to the worker – unlike a bank, which sits in the middle of transactions and whose income bears no relation to any of the services it provides. John Lanchester Read Quote
As an outsider to and observer of the restaurant business, one of the things I most admire about it is the risks people are willing to take. John Lanchester Read Quote
