Cafe Quotes

“It was the same Dimitri from long ago, the fierce one who was willing to risk his life for what was right. I almost wished he'd go back to being annoying, distant Dimitri, the one who told me to stay away. Seeing him now brought back too many memories -not to mention the attraction I thought I'd smashed. Now, with that passion all over him, he seemed sexier than ever. He'd worn that same intensity when we'd fought together. Even when we'd had sex. This was the way Dimitri was supposed to be: powerful and in charge.”
― Richelle Mead, Spirit Bound

“Nothing belongs to itself anymore.
These trees are yours because you once looked at them.
These streets are yours because you once traversed them.
These coffee shops and bookshops, these cafés and bars, their sole owner is you.
They gave themselves so willingly, surrendering to your perfume.
You sang with the birds and they stopped to listen to you.
You smiled at the sheepish stars and they fell into your hair.
The sun and moon, the sea and mountain, they have all left from heartbreak.
Nothing belongs to itself anymore.
You once spoke to Him, and then God became yours.
He sits with us in darkness now
to plot how to make you ours.” K.K.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“She's in the Catskill," Shopie began, but Scathach reached over and pinched her hand. "Ouch!"
I just wanted to distract you," Scathach explained. "Don't even think about Black Annis. There are some names that should never be spoken aloud."
That like saying don't think of elephants, Josh said, "and then all you can think about is elephants."
Then let me give you something else to think about," Scathach said softly. "There are two police officers in the window staring at us. Don't look," she added urgently.
Too late. Josh turned to look and whatever crossed his face--shock, horror, guilt or fear--bought both officers racing into the cafe, one pulling his automatic from its holster, the other speaking urgently into his radio as he drew his baton.”
― Michael Scott

“The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting.

Like the bistro.”
― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

“There was something quite beautiful about finding such a profound connection with an absolute stranger. In a city as densely populated as New York, the ratio of oddballs and jerks often seems to outnumber the sane ones. But tonight, I had found that rare gem.”
― Justine Castellon, Gnight, Sara / 'Night, Heck

“Frank treated customers with the contempt Rosy had only seen before at airport passport control. Even then, she’d never heard an immigration official refer to anybody as baldy.
“Hey, baldy,” Frank had said and whistled to call a customer back as though he were down in the paddock with an unruly herd. “You forgot your juice.”
Frank held up the bottle of Tropicana orange juice. And when… baldy came back, Frank slapped the bottle into his hand as though passing him the baton in a relay race, then waved the man aside—“Go!”—and pointed at the next customer.
“What do you want?” Frank said. “Cheese? Again? That’s three cheese you’ll have had in a row. Are you eating right?”
The customer stammered.
“Eh-but-eh-but-eh-but,” Frank mimicked. “Never mind. But think up a different filling next time. And not cheese and tomato.” He shook his head and made up the roll.”
― R.G. Manse, Screw Friendship

“WELCOME to the Karma Cafe. There are no menus you get served what you deserve...”
― Nitya Prakash

“A small café, that's love.”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“It's worth getting out of bed some mornings. And it's a pleasure, especially if the pale winter sun is out and shining, to delight with your lover in the urban gift of your favorite café. Fresh coffee, steaming croissants, and the Sunday papers. Ah! All the way to ours, Alice and I talked about love and how many people don't get any while others get a lot, and how that unfairness probably accounts for the federal deficit and crooked contracting practices, and so on.”
― Andrei Codrescu, New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City

“Perhaps he was only a homosexual, but I didn't want to take any chances.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“We each took a cup as we passed and drank the sweet chilled beverage- it was refreshing and tasted like ginger ale with a swirl of summer peaches. Then Peaseblossom waved us through the open door.
"Wow," said Henry.
We stepped into an enchanted culinary forest. The walls had been painted to look like a thicket of trees, and the ceiling resembled the summer sky in the woods, complete with overhanging branches. There were topiaries and baskets overflowing with wildflowers. The tables were grouped to one side, still draped in their shimmering coverings. Dreamy music floated through the air, and piney, herby scents wafted on gentle currents. Butterflies flitted around and landed on people's heads and shoulders. And everywhere we looked, there were trays of baked goods- most of them, I realized, straight from the pages of Puffy Fay's cookbook. The pastry case and the counter near it were hidden behind curtains that looked like a wall of evergreens.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“En su momento pensó que no podría vivir sin café, pero resulta que en realidad lo que quiere entre las manos es el tazón caliente; eso es lo que ayuda a pensar o a hacer lo que haga durante la sucesión de las horas, o de los días.”
― Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness: Stories

“Café olvidado a temperatura ambiente,
Recuerdos verdes, helados por la noche,
Un último cigarrillo como postre.
Los frutos de mi anhedonia.”
― Sebastian Crugley, Oceanos de Cemento

“Stepping outside, all finished, gold porchlight kissed my forehead. The animated nighttime island was a concrete jungle wild with promise, and around any cobblestone corner my big break might exist, disguised as a simple café, waiting for me to open the door.”
― Aspen Matis, Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir

“We were drinking coffee. I was sitting beside her in the shade of the cafe, watching the smoke from her lips drift up into the atmosphere above. And the curve in her lips paused time!”
― Avijeet Das

“They took the elevator up to the eighth floor. Charbonnel et Walker Chocolate Café was tucked between Ladies' Shoes and the Home and Gifts Department. Bathed in pale pink paint and lit by crystal chandeliers, the enchanted corner was dominated by a counter featuring a conveyor belt that transported plates of croissants, brownies, scones, muffins, and every imaginable truffle under glass domes. Dark and milk chocolate, strawberry, lemon, pink champagne, mint, cappuccino, and buzz fizz with its distinctive orange center. Sparkling glass cabinets temptingly displayed hundreds of the treats lined up in precise rows. They could be consumed on the premises or purchased to take away. A gold seal on the candy boxes signaled that the Queen of England was a fan.”
― Mary Jane Clark, To Have and to Kill

“You haven't until you've come in and tried one of our coffees.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“coffee: (n.) caffeinated beverage God gave us to drink in the morning so we might resist the urge to crawl immediately back in bed.”
― Sol Luckman, The Angel's Dictionary

“Milkshakes gave me a taste for life.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Milkshakes bring friends together.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Across the street from the bed-and-breakfast, I open a small café where residents can sip cocoa lattes, eat raspberry tarts baked in Valentine's Town, and savor orange whipped toffees that Helgamine and Zeldaborn complain get stuck in their few remaining teeth--yet they keep coming back for more. Wolfman and Behemoth sit together every afternoon sharing a pot of black rose tea, delicately holding their cups between clawed and too-large fingertips, nibbling on coconut macaroons. I even sell my sleeping tonic at the café--in a much milder dose than what I brew for the Sandman, who still stops by for a refill now and then--in scents of lavender and chamomile, herbs harvested from Dream Town.”
― Shea Ernshaw, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

“Le café (...) est un lieu de rendez-vous, c'est un espace ouvert, extérieur. C'est un endroit où l'on peut aussi venir seul, pour travailler, lire, mais où cette solitude est souvent interrompue par le passage de connaissances. S'installer au café témoigne d'une sorte de disposition à la rencontre”
― Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, 3: Une aspiration au dehors

“Moist cake, fresh blueberries, and melt-in-the-mouth frosting. "Best ever." He understood her slow savoring and the licking of her lips.
"I could eat blueberry butter cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner," she confessed. She tapped her fork on the plate, encouraging him. "There's plenty; have a second bite."
He shook his head; she was his indulgence. All happy, uninhibited, and turned on by cake. "I enjoy dessert now and again," he conceded. "But I'm more of a meat-and-potato guy."
"There's steak and eggs on our breakfast menu," she said. "Gram makes amazing home fries. Sliced potatoes, chopped onions, and sweet bell peppers cooked in bacon fat. Don't get me started on her buttermilk biscuits.”
― Kate Angell, The Café Between Pumpkin and Pie

“KENDERALL TAKES US UP TO Fred's to "replenish."
It's a café on the ninth floor of Barneys, it's very expensive and glamorous, and it confuses me immensely because Fred has an apostrophe but Barney doesn't so I'm not entirely sure what belongs to whom.”
― Holly Smale, Picture Perfect

“For spring and summer, Dina baked delicate and light pastries fragranced with rosewater, meskouta orange bundt cake, and delicate raspberry macarons. When strawberries were in season in early June, she made airy fraisier cake. For autumn and winter, Dina worked with heavier ingredients: thick, dark chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, gingerbread, and pumpkin. As the days grew colder and the light dimmed earlier and earlier, people started to crave that feeling of warmth and comfort. And Dina would give that to them, even if only for a short while. One special bake for this season was a ginger and persimmon cake, yellowed with saffron strands, which Dina had bought on her last trip to Morocco, and fresh vanilla pods, their sweet scent so potent that it wafted across the café.
This was in addition to all the regular pastries and cakes she had on offer, which were all recipes her mother had taught her to bake. The cake made with dark honey from the Atlas mountains was an all-time customer favorite. Dina had imbibed it with a very specific spell, a childhood memory of a time that she must have fallen asleep on a car ride home, and although she was a little too big to be carried, she remembered her father lifting her into his arms, her mother closing the car door softly so as not to wake her, then carrying her upstairs and tucking her into bed.
When she'd been fashioning the spell for the first time, it had occurred to Dina that one day your parents put you down and they never picked you up again, and so she'd made the honey cake to recreate that feeling of childhood comfort. That sensation of someone taking the utmost care of you, holding you close, was a feeling that many in the rushing city of London didn't experience often.
Sometimes she wondered if she was really in the business of café ownership, or if she was more of a fairy godmother in disguise. Undeniably, the magical pastries were great at keeping customers coming back for more, so that was a bonus on the businesswoman side of things.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Best Hex Ever

“Dina hummed to herself as she pulled out an empty jam jar from a busy cupboard. It was still labeled "Apricot Jam" from the batch her mum had made for her last year--- jam that tasted like bottled sunshine.
There wasn't an exact science to the magic, but Dina often found that the best tea blends were ones she put into secondhand jars, ones that had been full of delicious, wonderful things.
She clipped her curls out of her face and headed into the pantry. The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with all manner of jars and boxes, all individually labeled in Dina's messy handwriting. She kept her spices together, along with other baking essentials like fish vanilla, cake flour, and a tin that was labeled "Eye of Newt" but actually contained nutmeg.
Her tea selection had several shelves dedicated to it. Aside from the specialty blends she made for the shop, Dina kept a collection of tea and tisane ingredients, which she could mix into more personal blends at a moment's notice. Dina never felt more in her element as a kitchen witch than when she was looking through her pantry.
Scott's tea blend needed to be something that encapsulated his energies yet also helped him in some way. A tea to drink in the middle of a long work day, Dina decided.
She twirled a curl around her finger as she focused. She hadn't met any of his fellow curators yet, but from what Scott had told her they could be a bit of a handful. So the kind of tea that would help him get through a long meeting. Something to sharpen a tired mind. Dina knew just the thing for it.
She scooped up several jars and laid them out on the counter before her. Black tea--- a full-bodied assam, cacao nibs, dried ginger and... it was missing something. Dina stepped back into the pantry and surveyed her shelves with her hands on her hips.
She knew that this would need one more ingredient to be perfect for Scott. Lion's mane mushroom? Perhaps a little too earthy. Clove? Too heavy. It would overpower the other flavors. As her eyes skirted over the rows of jars, she spotted it. A small glass jar with a dark red powder in it. Dried beetroot! Perfect! Energizing yet slightly sweet and smooth, and it would make Scott look like he was drinking some kind of red-velvet-themed drink. Which was also his favorite cake flavor.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Best Hex Ever

“Paris is a timeless city. Or is it a city caught in time? Like a flower in a candle made of glycerine and clear wax…immovable, glowing…and the people, repeating their days, over, over, over again, walking the same boulevards, frequenting the same cafes, haunting the same hotels, traversing the same gardens…”
― Mariam Karim, The Street of Mists

“At a café in Tokyo I order cheesecake. It comes in a thick slice with a lightly caramelized crust in the centre of a small white plate, the glaze gradually darkening to a deep cream towards the middle. To the top of the plate is what at first I take to be a logo, a golden crest. It dawns on me as I eat and sip my tea that it is in fact a carefully mended crack. A delicate piece of kintsugi, an exquisite golden repair.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“there, on the fifth corner, is Les Deux Magots.
The cafe's green awning flaps frantically, pushed outward by a rushing wind from within. Around it are tables and chairs, all heaving up and suspended as if about to fly away; then spasming back to their positions on the ground. Up again, head-height and back. As they have jumped for years. The windows are blown out repeatedly, surrounded by broken glass that twitches and snaps back into the panes and then out again, repeatedly, an oscillating instant of combustion. The café rumbles.
Sam walks heavily toward it, into the empty road around it. It looks as if the air exhausts her, as if she walks against a gale. She stops, gasping, still meters from the entrance. The air rushes in Thibault's ears.
It was from here that the S-Blast came.”
― China Miéville, The Last Days of New Paris

“Jae's signature beverage was a honey butter latte--- Adeena based the flavor profile on his favorite brand of Korean snacks and tweaked it until the honey butter syrup perfectly complemented her hand-roasted coffee. The honey came from Elena's uncle's aviary, and high-quality butter was something we always had in stock, so it was the perfect addition to our menu.”
― Mia P. Manansala, Death and Dinuguan