Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Peter Mayle

I am a great believer in people taking control of their own lives.

Nowadays, if you have a journey, albeit a simple one, you consider yourself lucky if nothing happens.

The great thing about having money is that you can actually just get on with your life and not have to think about paying the bills or crouch over 'The Wall Street Journal' or the 'Financial Times' and look at the stock figures and things like that. That bores me rigid.

I have a robust sense of humour which helps me deal with problems.

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.

It's very nice to meet the people who read my books.

Very little happens in my books.

I have a very set routine. I work six days a week, but only half days. I work from 9 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon, without any interruptions, a fair slug.

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.

There are plenty of miserable millionaires all over the place.

When I was very young in London, I had a bank account, which didn't have a great deal in it. I should think at least every three months the bank manager would call me up and threaten to strangle me because I had no money, and I was writing checks.

I don't have a boss. Well, I have a boss: the public. If the public doesn't buy my books, I would be out of a job.

I left school at 16 and skipped university to work, initially as a waiter. I think I missed out on what would have been great years.

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.

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.

You don't like it when a French housewife gets mad at you. If she gets steam behind her, she is an unstoppable creature.

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.

In the south of France the phones cut in and out, the electricity isn't particularly reliable. I think many people would get very irritated with that life.

The funny thing in France is that writers are not allowed to retire, because the French government say you are still earning money from books you wrote 20 years ago.

Prescription for writer’s block: fear of poverty.

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.

Why not make a daily pleasure out a daily necessity.

I'd rather live precariously in my own office than comfortably in somebody else's.

Best advice I've ever received: Finish.

The great thing about having money is that you can actually just get on with your life and not have to think about paying the bills or crouch over The Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times and look at the stock figures and things like that. That bores me rigid.

There is nothing like a comfortable adventure to put people in a good humor. . .

Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks. His agent doesn’t love him (enough). The blank sheet of paper is an enemy. The publisher is a cheapskate. The critic is a philistine. The public doesn’t understand him. His wife doesn’t understand him. The bartender doesn’t understand him.

Day after day we looked for rain, and day after day we saw nothing but the sun. Lavender that we had planted in the spring died. The patch of grass in front of the house abandoned its ambitions to become a lawn and turned into the dirty yellow of poor straw. The earth shrank, revealing its knuckles and bones, rocks and roots that had been invisible before.

Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman.

The English kill their meat twice: once when they slaughter it and once when they cook it.

It is at a time like this, when crisis threatens the stomach, that the French display the most sympathetic side of their nature. Tell them stories of physical injury or financial ruin and they will either laugh or commiserate politely. But tell them you are facing gastronomic hardship, and they will move heaven and earth and even restaurant tables to help you.

I have a terrible weakness for collecting snatches of other people's conversations, and occasionally I'm rewarded with unusual fragments of knowledge. My favorite of the day came from a large but shapely woman sitting nearby whom I learned was the owner of a local lingerie shop. 'Beh oui,' she said to her companion, waving her spoon for emphasis, 'il faut du temps pour la corsetterie.' You can't argue with that. I made a mental note not to rush things next time I was shopping for a corset, and leaned back to allow the waiter through with the next course.

Sunglasses must be kept on until an acquaintance is identified at one of the tables, but one must not appear to be looking for company. Instead, the impression should be that one is heading into the cafe to make a phone call to one's titled Italian admirer, when--quelle surprise!--one sees a friend. The sunglasses can then be removed and the hair tossed while one is persuaded to sit down.

Depending on the inflection, ah bon can express shock, disbelief, indifference, irritation, or joy - a remarkable achievment for two short words.