In The Kitchen

The average American’s simplest and commonest form of breakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak.

Mark Twain (1835–1910), U.S. author. A Tramp Abroad, ch. 49 (1879).

I suppose the fact is that no friendship can stand the breakfast test. . . . Civilisation has done away with curl-papers, yet at that hour the soul of the Hausfrau is as tightly screwed up in them as was ever her grandmother’s hair, and though my body comes down mechanically, having been trained that way by punctual parents, my soul never thinks of beginning to wake up for other people till lunch-time, and never does so completely till it has been taken out of doors and aired in the sunshine. Who can begin conventional amiability the first thing in the morning? It is the hour of savage instincts and natural tendencies; it is the triumph of the Disagreeable and the Cross. I am convinced that the Muses and the Graces never thought of having breakfast anywhere but in bed.

Elizabeth Russell (Mary Annette Russell, Countess von Arnim), (1866–1941), Australian-born British novelist. Elizabeth and Her German Garden, “September 15th” (1898).

The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time.

A. P. Herbert (1890–1971), British author, politician. Uncommon Law, “Is Marriage Lawful?” (1935).*