Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.

Stevenson’s quip plays on the biblical phrase “Man shall not live by bread alone,” flipping it into a wry comment about political and public life. “Words” stand for promises, speeches, and public statements—things that can sustain reputations but not reality. The punch line—having to “eat them”—invokes the idiom for retracting or swallowing one’s own claims. The line captures the precariousness of rhetoric: language is powerful, but it can also trap the speaker when events change or earlier assertions prove wrong. It’s both a caution against careless pronouncements and a humorous acknowledgment that reversals are sometimes unavoidable.