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
dream morning night
the house protects the dreamer; the houses that are important to us are the ones that allow us to dream in peace. Guests we've had stop in for a night or two all come down the first morning, ready to tell their dreams.
running dream home
Everything I pick up seems to lure me away. Everything I do in my daily life begins to feel like striking wet matches. The need to travel is a mysterious force. A desire to 'go' runs through me equally with an intense desire to 'stay' at home. An equal and opposite thermodynamic principle. When I travel, I think of home and what it means. At home I'm dreaming of catching trains at night in the gray light of Old Europe, or pushing open shutters to see Florence awaken. The balance just slightly tips in the direction of the airport.
country rome paris
I loved every place I lived and traveled. London, Paris, Rome, Venice. I fell hard for Central America and Mexico. In each country, I had fantasies that I could live there.
arbitrary way different
Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.
moving culture urges
I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew.
chinese alive poet
A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.
responsibility language thrilling
It’s daunting to find the language so foreign, so distant, but also so thrilling. One is absolved of responsibility when the language is incomprehensible.
way technique cooks
There is no technique, there is just the way to do it. Now, are we going to measure or are we going to cook?
chance thousand offers
Life offers you a thousand chances... all you have to do is take one.
chance surprising
The Only Thing More Surprising Than the Chance She's Taking...Is Where It's Taking Her!
fun book writing
I got the idea that to write books would be the best way to spend a life. I never thought of anything else that seemed like half as much fun, although in my next life I would like to be an architect, too, so I can have an easier time restoring houses.
people tables innovative
What has impressed me the most about the Italians whose tables we've sat at is that they are traditional cooks but also outrageously innovative. These people are wild improvisers.
country people together
I find that other countries have this or this, but Italy is the only one that has it all for me. The culture, the cuisine, the people, the landscape, the history. Just everything to me comes together there.