Frances Mayes

“What is life but this? Choices made early in a relationship determine the course.”

“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.”

“Images are the pegs holding down memory's billowing tent.”

“When my husband is away and I'm by myself, my neighbours will insist I eat with them every single night because they see it as unhealthy to eat by yourself.”

“I think I went to Italy initially for the art, architecture, food and history, but I stayed there because of the people in Cortona.”

“The urge to travel feels magnetic. Two of my favorite words are linked: departure time. And travel whets the emotions, turns upside down the memory bank, and the golden coins scatter.”

“In America, people are just so straightforward when they dislike things.”

“The longer you are in a place, the more you get under its layers.”

“It's kind of amazing that people will travel because of a book. I admire that.”

“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.”

“There are reasons we congregate in these hot spots- to worship beauty and to feel its effects light up the electrolytes in the bloodstream.”

“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.”