Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes is an American university professor, poet, memoirist, essayist, and novelist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth4 April 1940
CountryUnited States of America
ideas people house
I'm just fascinated by houses. In another life, I'd have probably trained as an architect. If I had enough money, I'd collect them like other people collect teapots. I don't know why I love them so much. I'm just very interested in the idea of a house as a metaphor for the way one lives.
circles giving world
Poems give you the lives of others and then circle in on your own inner world.
dream writing thinking
The Dream Lover-what a bold, insightful, and enticing novel. And how vigorously Elizabeth Berg brings us the iconoclastic life of George Sand. Berg writes with such intimacy and compassion that I think she must have some shared ancestral DNA with Sand. I savored every page.
summer years may
May summer last a hundred years.
way enthusiasm your-children
Never lose your childish enthusiasm and things will come your way.
southern speech metaphor
I’ll always marvel at the liveliness of southern speech-so full of metaphor and hyperbole, quirks and vividness.
venice magic world
Venice, the most touristy place in the world, is still just completely magic to me.
orange body fruit
Anytime the perfume of orange and lemon groves wafts in the window; the human body has to feel suffused with a languorous well-being.
landscape honey bread
The undulent landscape looks serene in every direction. Honey-colored farmhouses, gently placed in hollows, rise like thick loaves of bread set out to cool.
grandfather cotton georgia
I was born and grew up in Fitzgerald, way down in south Georgia. It was a mill town and my family ran the cotton mill. My grandfather was mayor many times and my family felt deeply rooted to that spot.
flower skirts balconies
...outrageous flowers swagging off balconies like bright skirts of ballgowns...
book people kind
It's kind of amazing that people will travel because of a book. I admire that.
layers
The longer you are in a place, the more you get under its layers.
goal priorities everyday
The Italians have their priorities right: They're driven, they do their work, but they really enjoy the day-to-day and they don't put off the enjoyment of the everyday for some future goal.