These are my favorite Anthony Bourdain farewells.  I’ve ordered them by personal preference, your results may vary.  They are  moving, life-affirming and crushingly sad.

Clearly the man inspired people he knew, and millions more he never met.  I wonder if he knew that.

1.

“I can read a fucking book. Same as the rest of you fucks.”

Tony by David Simon.

2.

“Bourdain ended the episode on a brutal note…a reminder of America’s racist dehumanization of the culture we at home had just spent an hour celebrating.”

Anthony Bourdain and the Power of Telling the Truth  by Helen Rosner

3.

“…his resonant drumbeat of people are good and the world is vast was life-altering for me.”

On Anthony Bourdain and Living Unflinchingly  by Julia Claire

4.

“The shoot wrapped up at midnight. Los Angeles would not let him leave.”

Anthony Bourdain Was the Eternal Compadre of Overlooked Latinos by Gustavo Arellano

5.

“And I cannot imagine how the food world is going to cope with this gaping Bourdain-shaped hole…”

Anthony Bourdain Opened the Working Class Kitchen to the World and to Us by Jonathan Gold

6.

“The meager edited footage turned the episode into a difficult-to-watch existential meditation on how awful the world can be even while people remain capable of bridge-building.”

He may have had a bad boy persona, but Anthony Bourdain was lovely, loyal and so damn smart  by Evan Kleiman

7.

“In these current circumstances, one must pick a side,” Mr. Bourdain wrote. “I stand unhesitatingly and unwaveringly with the women.”

Anthony Bourdain Was a Teller of Often Unappetizing Truths by Pete Wells

8.

“We must do more and be better. Anthony, our friend, would want it that way.”

Dear Fellow Humans By Rose McGowan

9.

“Watching it now, I think Bourdain connected to everyone at the heart level all the time.”

Anthony Bourdain Was the Best White Man by Mallika Rao

10.

“The best tribute, today and going forward, is to take the curiosity that Bourdain strode the world with and apply it wherever you live.”

The Best Way to Honor Anthony Bourdain’s Memory: Eat Like He Did by Annaliese Griffin