Quotes from Frances:
Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew someday the train would come.
You have beautiful eyes, Francesca. I wish I could swim inside them.
It's market day in Cortona. The piazza is an ongoing party, and everyone is invited. Clichés converge at this navel of the world. You almost want to laugh, but you can't help feeling these Italians know more about having fun than we do.
Quotes from Patti:
You start a marriage with cake and champagne. Finish it that way, too. The beginning and the end should be fun, fun, fun. Too bad about those years in the middle.
Patti: You know when you come across one of those empty-shell people? And you think, "What the hell happened to you?" Well, there came a time in each one of those lives where they were at a crossroads. Someplace where they had to decide to turn left or right. This is no time to be a chickenshit, Frances.
Please tell the contessa that this is what I got for my house recently in dollars. Minus the work on the place. Hammers, buckets. Men. Chocolate. And a rental car to drive off a cliff when this all turns out to have been a terrible mistake. That's what I can pay.
No. It's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore è cieco. Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying, too. Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.
It is San Lorenzo. He is the patron saint of cooks. Apparently, he was martyred on a grill and seared until he said, "Turn me over. I'm done on this side." And now he is the favorite saint of chefs. I think if you prayed to him, he will help you find someone to cook for.
All I had were terrible ideas. I hated them all. I was just about to drop the class when she said something to me that changed everything. She said, "Terrible ideas are like playground scapegoats. Given the right encouragement, they grow up to be geniuses." She told me to take one, and work on it. Well, I did.
Listen, when I was a little girl, I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I'd just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.
You're probably one of those crazy American women like "Charlie's Angels", and you are going to kung-fu me and steal my car. But I'm willing to take the chance.
- Tom is one lucky bastard. A literary wife who makes brownies. I swear, if you tell me you cook in the nude, I'll go home and kill myself.
- Never in the nude. Always in a thong.
- How's the novel going?
- Not so well. But the procrastination is coming along fabulously. Soon it will breed abject self-loathing, and then I'll just become a writing machine.