55 Quotes by Peter Mayle

The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singular world of tu.

It was generally agreed that they were a funny bunch, these natives of August.

If I live to be sixteen, I shall never fully understand the rich complexities of human nature. Not sure that I want to, either. It would be a lifetime's work, and brooding over the mysteries of existence is bad for your health. Look what happens to philosophers. Most of them end up barking mad, taking to the bottle, or becoming professors of existentialism at obscure universities.

I would dearly love to resist the temptation, if you can call it that, to worry. It's boring, it's anti-social, it's unproductive and it's depressing.

I was lucky enough to spend some of my school days in Barbados, where my father was working, and this gave me a taste for hot weather.

There is nothing I like better at the end of a hot summer's day than taking a short walk around the garden. You can smell the heat coming up from the earth to meet the cooler night air.

One must never forget that life is unfair. But sometimes, with a bit of luck, this works in your favour.

No matter what their background, the southern French are fascinated by food.

Sundays in France have a different atmosphere to other days, with fewer phone calls, no postman, no delivery men and no one banging on the door.