Francesca Serritella > Quotes

“But I hate socks.' I do, especially sleeping in them. They always come half-off in the middle of the night, and why? What kind of inferior clothing item falls off of you when you're lying still?”
― Francesca Serritella, Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life As a Mother and Daughter

“...you believed in yourself. Not everyone will like you. Some people just want to take swipes at you. You need to trust yourself enough to ignore them.”
― Francesca Serritella, Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life As a Mother and Daughter

“You’ll find that most people here are more adept at appearing intelligent than actually being so. They’re mostly dolts.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“My shrinking ice cubes looked like the victim of global warming, missing only a tiny polar bear waving a withe flag.”
― Francesca Serritella, I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere But the Pool

“It takes only an error to father a sin.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“snapshots to remember in our mental scrapbooks and throw away the bad? Perhaps all photo albums should bear the subtitle “The Past—The Way You Want to Remember It.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“but Harvard was more than a school. It was validation. It was history. It was expectation.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“I haven't thought past my father. He died a few days shy of his thirtieth birthday. When I picture my future, I can imagine my Naval career, starting a family, but I can't picture myself as a geezer, or really any older than he got to be. It's like he's the horizon line in my head, I'm always moving toward it, but I can't imagine getting to the other side.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“They say fate is written in the stars, but the irony is that stars don't project the future, they reflect the past. If you think about it, every time you look at a star, you're looking back in time. The North Star is four hundred thirty light-years away, so when you see it shining, the light hitting your eyes is already four hundred thirty years old.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“Just because you can't explain something doesn't make it untrue.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“Adventure is only possible if you don't spoil the ending.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“Cady had learned that the family of a suicide victim doesn’t get straight sympathy.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“Tragedy taints a person, and no one wants to touch that sadness, just in case it spreads.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“His cinnamon muzzle, now sugared with age, quivered with a dream. One of his ears was turned inside out, showing the faded blue number tattooed inside. Before Iris adopted him from the beagle rescue, Hugo had spent his early life as a test subject in a laboratory. Iris named him in homage to Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, because like the hero of that story, he didn't let an unjust imprisonment corrupt his pure soul. He was the sweetest baby.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“She passed a fruit smoothie stand as one of its workers chopped up a whole pineapple using a hand ax with mesmerizing speed and skill, releasing atomized juice with each whack; it was glorious to catch wind of the tropical sweetness. She sniffed her wrist again, noticing new fruity facets of the perfume. Though that was just one of the riot of aromas that surrounded her: fragrant steam billowing from the sizzling cooktop of a Cuban sandwich vendor, carrying the mouthwatering scent of pulled pork; the peaty, mossy smell from a vendor selling potted plants and bonsai trees; the earthy patchouli of the CBD head shop; the buttery, slightly sour notes from racks of leather jackets and purses; all laced with the piquant odor of sticky summer bodies moving slowly past one another.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“Anguish is distinguished from fear in that fear is fear of beings in the world whereas anguish is anguish before myself. Vertigo is anguish to the extent that I am afraid not of falling over the precipice, but of throwing myself over.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“He kissed her neck and she bit his shoulder. His skin was like a salted caramel, and she didn't want him to rinse off before she got a taste. Even the piquancy of his sweat appealed to her, and as he reached overhead to adjust the sputtering showered, Iris kissed a path up the side of his torso to the softness of his underarm.
He pulled the strings on her bikini top and she undid the tie of his board shorts. Seeing him outside, in daylight, naked and aroused, awakened every inch of her body like the cool breeze on her wet skin. Their transgression laced her desire. She couldn't help grinning as he kissed her, and their teeth clicked like pearls. The shower water was warm by now, and they ducked into the stream together.
They kissed and caressed each other as the water made their skin slick with soap and sunscreen. Gabe ran his hands up and down her sides, then gripped the soft curves of her hips to spin her around and pulled her backside close. She leaned into his chest and felt his hardness thump between her thighs, her buttocks, slipping on her soapy body, and she teased him, swishing back and forth like a cat. He reached one hand around her breasts and slid the other down her stomach. When his fingers found between her legs wetter than water, he swore in her ear--- an exclamation and declaration of exactly what he wanted to do to her.
Iris glanced up toward the house, where the fear of someone seeing them had morphed to thrill, then fantasy. Unbidden, the image of Jonathan watching them from a window flashed behind her eyes, and then it was Jonathan's tan arm crossed over her collarbones, his hand making her ache. The first wave of pleasure made it hard to hold herself up. She opened her eyes and braced against the wall, her fingernails making fresh yellow scratches in the soft silver teakwood.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“Now she understood that we must love people whom we cannot control, in fact, we are lucky to love and be loved by people we cannot control. If we could control the person, love wouldn’t be a gift. This was the uncertainty of life, and of death. It was what made life beautiful and terrifying at once. It was the state of grace.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“You know it is a myth that women lose their power as they age. A lie invented by men afraid of being challenged. Youth has currency, but not power. Every perfumer knows you do not pick green buds. A flower’s scent, its power of attraction, is most potent on the cusp of decay.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom: A Novel

“She took the box; it was too heavy to be muffins or croissants, and the cardboard bottom was so warm, she felt the heat on her thighs through her sheets. She shot a puzzled glance at Gabe, who remained impishly silent, and pulled the cotton string. She opened it to reveal a fresh-baked whole pie, releasing a mouthwatering aroma of toasty, buttery pastry and a caramelized berry sweetness that was bubbling through the golden-brown crust in dark veins of sticky sugar.
Her stomach growled in response. "Do you have a knife? I'll cut you a slice."
Gabe produced two forks and handed her one. "Who needs slices anyway? This is just for us."
He stripped naked and jumped into bed, bouncing her as she giggled and kept the pie upright. They cozied up next to each other, sitting up against the headboard, and dug in, Gabe first. It felt sacrilegious to defile a pie this way. But it simply smelled too good to resist, and she too poked her fork in the center, shamelessly breaking the sparkly sugared crust and digging into the soft, steaming blueberry filling. Her fork was no match for this glorious pie, and each juicy bite sent a few blueberries tumbling like black pearls, dotting the box and bedsheets in royal purple. The sweet ink of a delicious memory that would excite Iris for years to come.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“In addition to the aquatic freshness of lychee fruit, the head has neroli, the flower of bitter orange. It is delicate, a little green, and more aromatic than citrus, and known for its purifying qualities."
Iris thought the neroli must be the juicy nectar and the lychee the rosy pop.
"Then a voluptuous floral heart. Tuberose, la fleur charnelle, the carnal flower, whose narcotic femininity was once believed to be so powerful that it could send young women into spontaneous orgasm if they smelled it after dark. Next, the flower that raised me, jasmine, a tiny white flower with an enveloping sweetness, warm and resonant as a cello line. And Osmanthus, what the Chinese call the flower of wisdom, whose scent evokes an apricot's velvet flesh, at once blushing and innocent yet strapped with a leather nuance.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“If Madame Rapacine had taught her anything, it was that if you wanted to capture a time, a place, a feeling, you needed to make it into a perfume. Iris understood, Rapacine hadn't destroyed the home she loved--- she had bottled it.
But for those few passersby who resist the dissociation the city begs of its residents, those who are more in touch with their bodies, or sensitive to whimsy, or at the very least not in a terrible rush, they had a surreal experience. A Pilates instructor and former principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey company walked by and smelled the water and was reminded of the glamorous patrons at her first professional dance gig, opening a new club called Studio 54. A Japanese chef on holiday passed by and thought it smelled like the yuzu and rosewater cake he once baked for his sister's wedding. And a small child simply thought it smelled like her mother when she was going out for the evening. The perfume that poured from the brownstone could evoke a different memory for every person in New York. But all of them were beautiful.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“All of our stories end, one way or another. The stars are a reflection of the past, what you leave behind.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“You know what they say about why girls love horses?"
Iris knew exactly where he was headed; she had always hated this joke.
Jonathan looked wearily at him. "Careful, Bill, this is my daughter we're talking about."
She hated this rejoinder too. It was a scummy way to talk about any young girl, the ones with fathers and without.
"All right, Allegra excluded. But Iris know what I'm talking about. The friction...?"
The heat radiating off Iris's blotchy chest sent a waft of the perfume up to her flaring nostrils. "People who think riding horses gives women orgasms don't know how to do either thing right.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“When you love someone, time isn’t such a big obstacle.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard

“It felt easy, natural, unthinking, but the thrill--- there was the proof it was a first kiss, the first kiss, as if she had never kissed or been kissed properly by anyone before. Every sense was heightened in a swirl of pleasure; the woodsy smell of his skin, the bittersweet Campari on his tongue, the warm envelopment of his presence even as he touched only her lips and her elbow, the sight of fireworks behind closed eyes, and the sound of the world falling silent. A cyclone of sensation overloading her system, and the two of them, alone together in the eye of a beautiful storm.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“The second course is a soft-shell crab tempura with miso rémoulade, fresh peaches, and lovage."
"What's lovage?" Jen asked.
"It's what I have for you," Peter replied.
Chef smiled. "It is an herb, like parsley. Only more zesty."
Everyone oohed and mmmed over first bites. The lovage lent a crisp note of citrus and celery to the deep umami flavor of the miso and crunchy fried crab's creamy inside, while the peaches picked up the sweetness.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“Iris had recently learned there was a word for the scent of rain: petrichor, a pleasant, refreshing note with a cool mineral glint--- but this rainwater wasn't running through green grass or skipping over smooth river rocks.”
― Francesca Serritella, Full Bloom

“It is far easier and more pleasant to imagine happy endings, however farfetched, in all their vivid, rainbow colors than it is to face each day's reality and let time and fortune do their worst.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard