Frances Mayes Quotes

The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.

Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter.

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.

Ireland, in breadth, and for wholesomeness and serenity of climate, far surpasses Britain; for the snow scarcely ever lies there above three days: no man makes hay in the summer for winter's provision, or builds stables for his beasts of burden... the island abounds in milk and honey.

This morning's scene is good and fine, Long rain has not harmed the land.

The restoration comes not only from the landscape and air, though they play their significant part, but from the people. I feel a strong need to be in New Hampshire for as much of the summer as I can manage it.

Winemakers have to adapt to what they're given by nature: the vines, the fruit, the soil and the weather.

I live in a landscape, which every single day of my life is enriching.

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.

The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon. Were our own industrious farmers to settle here, they would soon transform this wilderness into a Paradise where no man need ever go hungry….Never have I beheld such a rich and pleasant land.

Water. Its sunny track in the plain; its splashing in the garden canal, the sound it makes when in its course it meets the mane ofthe grass; the diluted reflection of the sky together with the fleeting sight of the reeds; the Negresses fill their dripping gourds and their red clay containers; the song of the washerwomen; the gorged fields the tall crops ripening.

The good Husbandman may pluck His rose & gather in His lily.

There is ripe fruit over your head.

The year is getting to feel rich, for his golden fruits are ripening fast, and he has a large balance in the barns, which are his banks. The members of his family have found out that he is well to do in the world. September is dressing herself in show of dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception.

It is only to the gardener that time is a friend, giving each year more than he steals.

Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net. For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.

Still photographs often differ from life more by their silence than by the immobility of their subjects. Landscape pictures tend to converge with life, however, on summer nights, when the sounds outside, after we call in children and close garage doors, are small - the whir of moths, the snap of a stick.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.

The Future, like a fruitfuller Summer, sits Ripening her Eden silently.

We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees.