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What makes cookbooks interesting is to find out about the people and the culture that invented the food.

Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.

You'll find a lot of rich detail in people's personal histories - diaries and journals and things of the era.

I've read hundreds of cookbooks. For my money, they are the bird.

My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.

A cookbook is a moment in time because, otherwise, you look back at the end of the day, and all the meals have been eaten, and the experience is gone.

I have a good collection of cookery books. This is not so much because I like cooking, but because I like eating.

I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains.

I've read hundreds of cookbooks. Most of those cookbooks don't even tell you how to get a steak ready, how to bake biscuits or an apple pie.