Shannon

“Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different. Where did the expression "a place in the sun" first come from? My rational thought process cling always to the idea of free will, random event; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate. ”
― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

“The words 'forse che si,' 'forse che no', 'perhaps yes,' 'perhaps no,' repeat along all paths.”
― Frances Mayes, A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller

“Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.”
― Frances Mayes, A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller

“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.”
― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy