Francesca Quotes

“Do you think people have noticed that I'm around?”
“I notice when you're not. Does that count?”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Come here,” she says.
“No, you come here.”
“I said it first.”
“Rock paper scissors.”
“No. Because you’ll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you’ll win.”
Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“The two horsewomen of the apocalypse still win, despite their dwindling numbers.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“He came third in the state for woodwork,”
Francesca explains. “We actually had to be proud of him for a whole week. Tough times.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“she could have dropped you both off. whar's the worst she can do? cry hysterically?"
the gears on the ute get stuck at the lights and will pushes tom's hand out of the way and and shoves it into the correct gear.
"it wasn't her" he mutters after a moment.
"sorry?" tom says.
"she didn't cry"
"then what?"
it's too quiet except for the quiet for the crap engine sounding like a lawn mower.
"i cried"
luca bursts out laughing beside will.
"yeah, well i did" will says. "And it's not the thing you want to do in front of a bunch on engineers.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“sometimes he feels a pull towards Francesca. She was the reason he came into the group. It was her misery that united them and somehow her personality that kept them together when everyone split. She’s the one that writes the letter to kept the world informed. She listens to the news every hour to make sure everyone’s safe. So tonight he walks away even though she’s moved forward to give him a hug. Because he wants to kiss her, and knows she’ll hate him for it and that he’ll hate himself. He knows it’s for all the wrong reasons and that he’ll end up thinking of Tara Finke and her Brazilian peacekeeper and will Trombal and how he doesn’t do romance, but it eats the space between him and Francesca every time he’s in the room with her.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“I met you at the cornerstone on the highway to bedlam./Walked with you to the pinnacle, along that ledge to hell,/Traveled along the passageway of all things aching,/But would crawl with you if you wanted me to/On the steeple point to hope./So we can tip the stars and hold the moon,/Graze the sun, but make it soon.”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens
Thy learn’d instructor. Yet so eagerly 120
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day,
For our delight we read of Lancelot, 4
How him love thrall’d. Alone we were, and no 125
Suspicion near us. Oft-times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our alter’d cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wished smile so raptorously kiss’d 130
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kiss’d. The book and writer both
Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso

“I was wrong, Robert. I was wrong, but I can't go. Let me tell you again why I can't go. Tell me again why I should go.”
― Robert James waller, The Bridges of Madison County

“I gave his a squeeze and relaxed beside him, wondering if this was how it felt.
If this was how it felt to get what you wanted for a lifetime.
Have it stretched out beside you.
The promise of it there all night so you'd wake up to it in the morning.
The promise of it going to work the next day with you knowing it was coming back.
A promise that would stay a promise-beautiful, forever there, beckoning, even as minute by minute it was being fulfilled, leaving you taking your last breath on earth knowing you lived a life filled with beauty.
If it was, it was weirdly serene.
You'd think something that magnificent would be about fireworks.
But if this was it, it wasn't.
It was quiet, tranquil, comfortable.
Beauty.”
― Kristen Ashley, The Promise

“I leaned back against the hearth, and the fire's warmth and fluttering light lulled me into gentler thoughts of Francesca. I closed my eyes and saw the beloved face dominated by wide-set antelope eyes. Her eyebrows arched like the wings of a swan, and the whites of her eyes, almost bluish, made a startling contrast to her caramel skin. I later learned that her great-great-grandmother had been kidnapped by slavers in Turkey, brought to Venice, and then sold to a German trader. It was a common story in Venice. Francesca's more recent ancestors had been German and Italian, and the result was a mix of northern ice and Mediterranean warmth.
Francesca's upper lip curved in that sensual way that caused jealous Muslim husbands to veil their wives' faces. Her smoldering Levantine beauty contrasted with her silver-blond Teutonic hair, shockingly fair next to her dusky complexion and the sultry hint of Byzantium flashing in her dark eyes. Her nostrils were shaped like perfect teardrops.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief

“The first time I noticed Francesca in the Rialto, I thought she was alone. Then the crowd shifted and I saw her massive Mother Superior standing at the stall of a spice merchant, picking through a sack of peppercorns, her nose twitching like a rabbit's, her face set and ready to do battle over the price. Francesca waited nearby, swinging her market basket and smiling at passersby. That smile snagged me, held me, and wouldn't let me go. She had all her teeth and they were white, so white, and her face was clean and sunstruck.
A dog, small and wiry, sniffed the hem of her robe, and she knelt down to pet it. I heard her cooing and the dog nuzzled into her arms. She glanced around to be sure Mother Superior wasn't watching, then quickly took a sausage from her basket and fed it to the dog. He bolted it down greedily and then looked up at her with naked adoration. She laughed, and her laughter made me think of a field of wildflowers.
Francesca pulled a square of lace from her sleeve to wipe the sausage grease from her fingers, and I had the fleeting thought that I'd never before seen a nun with such a fine lace handkerchief. But that thought vanished with the sight of Mother Superior rising up behind her.
The older nun stood over her, shouting. "Don't you know better than to touch a stray animal? I swear, you're hopeless, girl. Hopeless."
The light went out of Francesca's face. She moved off behind the older woman but looked back at the little dog and rolled her eyes. She waved good-bye and her fingers moved like butterflies.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief

“I only remember the green-apple fragrance of her breath, the shock of her eyes meeting mine, and the magnetic current that pulled me to her. I remember the fan of her eyelashes as she lowered her eyes to read, and I remember the translucence of her fingernails, the pale pink nail bed and clean white rim, as she pointed to each word. And, of course, the beguiling scent of her. I caught the smell of soap and baking and, under that, a flowery musk, mysterious and exciting. Her scent conjured a dreamscape of everything I longed for.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief