Quotes from Laura Fraser

Human archetypes — the worried man, the chatterbox, the laughing old woman, the conniving youth.

The fundamental condition of man is his verticality.

Gorgeous' you say in English and he likes that word tasting it like wine.

All I knew was that there was a wine called Chianti, which came in bottles with little baskets,

So, too, how to tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in

The Italians have that wonderful verb, raccontare , that means to tell a story.

Naples isn't so much the southernmost city in mainland Europe as the northernmost city in Africa.

Nor can I pass over the Sardinian gnocchetti in its red meat sauce; someone's grandmother spent all day on those,

the mother did something that neither Tim's parents, WASPy sticklers for table manners, nor my parents, WASPy guilty eaters, would ever have done: she took more artichokes off her plate with her fingers and insisted I eat them, too. I did, to her relish, and mine.

Both of my parents had a change of career. My mum was a nurse, and now she's a college lecturer.

When I was 18, I couldn't wait to move away. I was like: 'If I ever have to come back here, I'll kill myself.' Glasgow seemed like failure and death to me back then, but not any more.

It's mad what each generation vilifies. It's not necessarily to do with logic.