I've been making sushi for 38 years, and I'm still learning. You have to consider the size and color of the ingredients, how much salt and vinegar to use and how the seasons affect the fattiness of the fish.

I buy soy sauce and flavor it five different ways: with sake, mirin, sugar, kombu and bonito flakes. I use them on lots of dishes at home.

A lot of people call me a celebrity chef, but I don't think that I'm a celebrity. So I want to stay keeping just a chef. That's more comfortable.

A kitchen without a knife is not a kitchen.

You're in a situation where you have limited education opportunities, you don't have any money, you can't get a job; what are you going to do? You're going to go back to this criminal network that you actually made while you were in prison.

My family was a good family, I had a great Canadian education and I came up in a great, little town like Ottawa.

The best teachers, one hopes, don't shout at their students - because they are skilled at wooing as well as demanding the best efforts of others. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, this wooing was a sufficiently fine art in itself to be the central focus of education.

I remember I used to come up to my teacher crying because I couldn't read. She would say: 'You can do this. You just don't want to do this.'