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
path repeats
The words 'forse che si,' 'forse che no', 'perhaps yes,' 'perhaps no,' repeat along all paths.
reading names twelve
When I was twelve, I started reading Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O'Connor, James Agee, and - do we dare breathe the name - William Faulkner.
memories forever spots
Although I am a person who expected to be rooted in one spot forever, as it has turned out I love having the memories of living in many places.
order childhood obstacles
Sometimes you have to travel back in time, skirting the obstacles, in order to love someone.
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.
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.
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.