Franny Billingsley Quotes & Sayings

I can.
He rent his dark tresses,
Resulting in messes,
Thus prompting his L.I. to flee till,
she reached the end of the world and jumped off.
Perhaps I have untapped potential. — Franny Billingsley

I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list — Franny Billingsley

Secrets press inside a person. They press the way water presses at a dam. The secrets and the water, they both want to get out. — Franny Billingsley

Once we got to eating, the idea of happiness returned to me. Not the feeling, the idea. Would a regular girl be happy simply eating a hot meal with a great deal of chew to it? Maybe happiness is a simple thing. Maybe it's as simple as the salty taste of pork, and the vast deal of chewing in it, and how, when the chew is gone, you can still scrape at the bone with your bottom teeth and suck at the marrow. — Franny Billingsley

You could write your way into happiness. It might not be the happiness you'd experience if Eldric pushed Leanne from a cliff, but there's a firefly glimmer in writing something that would please Rose. — Franny Billingsley

How true, lamentably true. I'm sorry, Father. I do not love my neighbor as myself. — Franny Billingsley

Smash the table, why don't you? Kick things about. It's ever so nice to see you embrace the true spirit of the Fraternitus. — Franny Billingsley

Briony scared?" said Eldric. "I've never seen anyone less scared in my life. She has nerves of iron. — Franny Billingsley

Soon the Boggy Mun would open up shop. I wore no cloak and had no pockets. I carried my knife and salt in a basket. Little Red Riding Hood, skipping off into the woods. And whom will she meet?
Why, her own self, of course: the wolf. — Franny Billingsley

If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world? — Franny Billingsley

We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so. — Franny Billingsley

If there were such a thing as a vampire-puppy-dog, it would be Cecil. Big pleading eyes, asking for an ear-scratch and a nice warm bowl of blood. — Franny Billingsley

I grew up in a household that was filled with Scottish and Irish ballads. So I think that the complexity and the melancholy and the languor of them has kind of gotten into my bones and that's the way I write. Now what does it contribute to my books? I don't know; I guess I would say that those are the kinds of books I like to read, books with vivid images and lots of mist and velvet cloaks and stuff. It's not as though I'm setting out to do that; it's just who I am. — Franny Billingsley

I've confessed to everything and I's liked to be hanged. Now, if you please — Franny Billingsley

There are no preconditions for jealousy. You don't have to be right, you don't have to be reasonable. Take Othello. He was neither right nor reasonable, and Desdemona ended up dead. I wouldn't mind Leanne ending up dead. I wouldn't mind exploding her into fireworks of peacock and pearl. — Franny Billingsley

When I was a kid, I just read and read. We were lucky enough to have gone to England and had a whole bunch of Penguin Puffins books, like The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, which is hilarious. I would love to be able to write a book like that, but I don't know that I have a humorous bone in my body when it comes to writing. Once on a Time by A.A. Milne. I read a lot of old, old fantasy stuff. The Carbonelbooks by Barbara Sleigh. Then when I got a little older I loved Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I was a big fan of romance and when I got a little bit older I would read a Harlequin romance or a Georgette Heyer novel and then David Copperfield, and then another genre book and then Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy. I was that kind of reader. One book that I loved was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I loved voice and that book had it in spades. And then of course I grew into loving Jane Eyre. — Franny Billingsley

I have a theory about how she might have managed to pull off such a feat. It comes in the form of an equation: Love + Fear = Herculean Strength. It's how mothers come to fling runaway motorcars from their children. — Franny Billingsley

A poem doesn't come out and tell you what it has to say. It circles back on itself, eating its own tail and making you guess what it means. — Franny Billingsley

Eldric wore his lazy lion's smile. He didn't mind what he was called. He was a sticks-and-stones sort of person. — Franny Billingsley

When we were small, Rose and I used to play a game called connect the dots. I loved it. I loved drawing a line from dot number 1 to dot number 2 and so on. Most of all, I loved the moment when the chaotic sprinkle of dots resolved itself into a picture.
That's what stories do. They connect the random dots of life into a picture. But it's all an illusion. Just try to connect the dots of life. You'll end up with a lunatic scribble. — Franny Billingsley

It wasn't quite a question. It was more of an invitation to tell him whatever I chose. Eldric game me a choice, and it was this that made me want to tell him everything. — Franny Billingsley

I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way. — Franny Billingsley

My own mask stayed just where it ought. I've had lots of practice. — Franny Billingsley

I might be a wicked girl who'd think nothing of eating a baby for breakfast, but I'd never allow myself to get expelled. It's far too public. — Franny Billingsley

Imagine a world without shadows. You cannot touch a shadow, but a world without them is a hard world, and flat. — Franny Billingsley

When Rose takes to screaming, she starts loud, continues loud, and ends loud. Rose has a very good ear and always screams on the same note. I'd tested her before I burnt the library, and our piano along with it.
Rose screams on the note B flat.
We don't need a piano anymore now that we have a human tuning fork. — Franny Billingsley

Now that's true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me. — Franny Billingsley

Poor Cecil. It's hard to be a devil of a fellow in these modern times. No stagecoaches to hold up. No princesses to rescue. Just Petey Todd to escort, while the easy, expert fellow walks the pretty girl home. — Franny Billingsley

Actually, it would be assumed that the young lady had no such impulses at all, but I'll tell you something: Chocolate melts on my tongue too. — Franny Billingsley

A person might get angry when the girl he loves says she'll never marry. — Franny Billingsley

I hope you don't mind my joining you, said Leanne. I minded. After all, she'd tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn't. — Franny Billingsley

My feet are wet," said Mr. Dreary.
"You lack the proper gear," I said. We teetered along a trickle of land that wound between water and mud. "Here in the swamp, even the swans wear rubber boots. — Franny Billingsley

But witchy magic doesn't listen to please and pretty please, and anyway, I didn't really care. I only pretended to care because not caring makes me a monster. — Franny Billingsley

Our parents teach us the very first things we learn. They teach us about hearts. — Franny Billingsley

Should I ever again sink into illness, I'm sure I'll remember Eldric. I'll remember he cared for me. I'll remember that someone had at least taken the time to touch my face. — Franny Billingsley

It's strange how a person can have a distinct distaste for herself, but still she clutches on to life. — Franny Billingsley

...if you don't argue, you can't give in... — Franny Billingsley

I turned my peeled-apple face to him. I'd make myself look at him. I owed him that. His touch lingered on my neck as though he'd left a handprint of melted light. — Franny Billingsley

Death had no lips, but it was smiling — Franny Billingsley

Blast Cecil!" said Eldric. "You have my permission," I said. — Franny Billingsley

How many bones did he set?" I cared about it much less than they did. It's my Florence Nightingale calm, I suppose.
There was a pause.
"Twenty-seven," said Father.
There was a question mark in that pause. "How many bones are in the hand?"
Another pause.
"Twenty-seven," said Eldric. — Franny Billingsley

I'm not really the sacrificing type. — Franny Billingsley

Darling! Had they darlinged each other when they were here? I imagined them, magnificent on horseback, tossing darlings to and fro. — Franny Billingsley

Is this what a nun feels when she runs wild? Perhaps running wild needn't mean dressing in satin and taking to cigarettes. It might mean running into the wild, into the real, into the ooze and muck and the clean, muddy smell of life. — Franny Billingsley

The handkerchief dabbed at my forehead. 'Ouch! You'll have a fine-looking bruise tomorrow.'
'Then you'll be able to distinguish me from Rose.'
The handkerchief paused. 'I could tell you apart from the beginning. You're quite different to each other, you know.'
Perhaps he could tell, in the obvious ways. The odd one was Rose; the other odd one was Briony. — Franny Billingsley

People think me a sort of Florence Nightingale, but I have no heroic qualities. I simply don't feel very much. — Franny Billingsley

Let's hope she's like the others, who look only at the surface. Let's hope she'd never think that a girl with black-velvet eyes and cut-glass cheekbones could be a witch. — Franny Billingsley

I have some questions about betrayal," I said. "Think about this: A person who calls you his best friend, and says he has dinner plans with you, goes off with a beautiful woman, saying he'll be back directly, then makes you wait half an hour because he's kissing the woman in the alley. Is that betrayal?"
"Oh, Lord." Eldric tossed back his wine. — Franny Billingsley

Witches don't look like anything. Witches are. Witches do. — Franny Billingsley

Sometimes, of course, the sister's the wicked one, not the stepmother. — Franny Billingsley

I felt as though I were a music box in want of winding. Yes, as though I were a music box and the tune were my life, playing more and more slowly with every passing day. Finally, not even I could recognize it. The notes were stretched too far apart. They were no longer notes, they were plinks. I wound down to a plink. — Franny Billingsley

You don't mind when he stares at you." Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric.
"He doesn't stare," I said. "He looks. — Franny Billingsley

How can something as fragile as a word build the whole world? — Franny Billingsley

It's one thing if a person learns you're a witch. It's quite another if he learns you're a murderer. I almost forget I'm a witch now that I know I'm a murderer - murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse. — Franny Billingsley

It's the picnic principle. Things taste better outdoors. And if it's a forbidden thing, so much the better. — Franny Billingsley

It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie. — Franny Billingsley

The only right memory, is the one that first comes to you. — Franny Billingsley

The problem I have telling my secret', said Eldric, 'is that it's a secret. — Franny Billingsley

A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart. — Franny Billingsley

Poor Petey. I'd like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I'd rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke. — Franny Billingsley

For four years I have been wearing blinders. I thought all this time I walked a path of cobblestones, and it turns out to have been an avenue of stars! For four years, my head has been caught in a box. Its sides were painted with pleasant enough scenes, but that I should have thought this was the world! — Franny Billingsley

There is a lump of desolation beneath the bony dip at my throat. It is no bigger than a coin, this spot, a peculiarly small place to hold such a feeling. I try to shove it to some deeper region, but there it sticks, a fragile skin-thickness from the outside world. — Franny Billingsley

I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it's not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that's how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I've had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now.
That that's how we find our way toward meaning.
Meaning. If you're going to die, you want to find meaning in life.
You want to connect the dots. — Franny Billingsley

Our English monarchs are so unimaginative," said Eldric. "They execute people in such tediously conventional ways. — Franny Billingsley

Life and stories are alike in one way: They are full of hollows. The king and queen have no children: They have a child hollow. The girl has a wicked stepmother: She has a mother hollow. In a story, a baby comes along to fill the child hollow. But in life, the hollows continue empty. — Franny Billingsley

Father sighed. "Please spare me these arguments of yours."
"Whose arguments should I use? — Franny Billingsley

Boxing's not that straightforward," said Eldric. "You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually. — Franny Billingsley

You could at least complain," I say. "I adore complaining. It calms the nerves. — Franny Billingsley

I am entirely well," said Eldric, "which has Dr. Rannigan exploring first one theory, then another, trying to understand. But not being a man of science, I don't care about understanding. I simply want to go outside and break a few windows. — Franny Billingsley

That's where proper stories begin, don't they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong? — Franny Billingsley

I explained we lost the porch to the flood. 'Father hasn't gotten around to rebuilding it, although he's quite a good carpenter. He says if Jesus was a carpenter, it's good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall down. — Franny Billingsley

Poor Cecil, consumed by a grande passion, only to be told to compress his love manifesto into a haiku. "I won't try to excuse my behavior," he said. "It was despicable."

Or a limerick.

There once was a rotter named Cecil,
Whose Love Interest wished he could be still.

Oh well. Unlike some, at least, I've never pretended to be a poet. — Franny Billingsley

I don't like my shoes,' said Rose.
'I'm wearing my shoes and you don't see me complain.'
'You only hear a person complain,' said Rose. 'Not see.'
How has Rose lived for seventeen years and no one has killed her, not once? — Franny Billingsley

Some secrets are wrong and ought to be told. — Franny Billingsley

You mind your tongue!"
"Oh, I do," I said. "I sharpen it every evening on your name. — Franny Billingsley

Perhaps you should put your head down. I knew this was the thing to do, although I've never fainted and I don't intend to. — Franny Billingsley

Eavesdropping is such a regular-person activity. — Franny Billingsley

A toast at your wedding, perhaps?" said Eldric.
"I shall never get married," I said. "But I do like champagne. — Franny Billingsley

Thoughts are strange creatures. They lead you from one thing to another. Sometimes you don't know how you got from one to the next. — Franny Billingsley

This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort upon me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It's not so much the comfort itself as knowing there's someone who wants to take care of you. — Franny Billingsley

I'd rather be in Hell with my soul and wits, than in the outside world without them. — Franny Billingsley

Despite her cough, Rose was in unusually good spirits. That was irritating. If I'm to trade my life for Rose's, I'd appreciate her exhibiting a touch of melancholy. Also acceptable would be despair. — Franny Billingsley

The boy shall have a proper beating,' said Cecil.
'But I beat him already,' I said, 'and don't tell me I didn't do it properly. I'm touchy about these things. — Franny Billingsley

Forge ahead, O mighty enforcer of the law. May you be stout of heart and eardrum. — Franny Billingsley

I don't know what it is, but I ache for it each day. It's as though I have eyes, but there are colors I cannot see. As though I have ears, but there's a range of notes I cannot hear. — Franny Billingsley

He scooped up my arm, swung me round. "Let go, Cecil," I said. "I've a strange dislike of being forced." "But Briony," he said, "I'm so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!" Why didn't he? — Franny Billingsley

Yes, I'm shallow, I don't mind admitting it. Perhaps I should admit that there's no end to the depths of my shallowness. — Franny Billingsley

Guess what it is that turns plants to coal.
Pressure.
Guess what it is that turns limestone to marble.
Pressure.
Guess what it is that turns Briony's heart to stone.
Pressure.
Pressure is uncomfortable, but so are the gallows. Keep your secrets, wolfgirl. Dance your fists with Eldric's, snatch lightning from the gods. Howl at the moon, at the blood-red moon. Let your mouth be a cavern of stars. — Franny Billingsley

The beach has a language of its own, with its undulating ribbons of silt, the imponderable hieroglyphs of bird tracks. The receding waves catch on innumerable holes in the sand. Bubbles form and fade. A new language, with a new alphabet ... — Franny Billingsley

I'm not like that fellow who thought it a far, far better thing to trade his life for that of another. I'm nothing like him: I'd never volunteer to lay my head in the lap of Madame la Guillotine. No, that fellow was a hero and I'm not a hero at all. — Franny Billingsley

Eldric turned away from the mirror, holding out his hand. In the cup of his hand lay his fidget of paper clips. But the fidget had blossomed into a crown. An allover-filigree crown, with a twisty spire marking the front.
I stared at it for some moments. "It's for you," said Eldric. "If you want it."
"I'm seventeen," I said. "I haven't played at princess for years."
"Does that matter ?" Eldric set it on my head. It was almost weightless, a true crown for the steam age.
In a proper story, antagonistic sparks would fly between Eldric and me, sparks that would sweeten the inevitable kiss on page 324. But life doesn't work that way. I didn't hate Eldric, which, for me, is about as good as things get. — Franny Billingsley

I still can't understand how Cecil and my old tutor, Fitz, got along so well, when we often called Fitz 'the Genius' and avoided calling Cecil anything at all, so as not to be rude. — Franny Billingsley

Word magic. If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. How can something as fragile as a word build itself a whole world? — Franny Billingsley

He's harmless, poor thing. That's what everyone said. It was true, but who cares? Lots of people are harmless, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. — Franny Billingsley

I like rain and mist. I've never understood why people exclaim over bright skies and bushels of glaring sunshine. — Franny Billingsley

Father's silence is not merely the absence of sound. It's a creature with a life of its own. It chokes you. It pinches you small as a grain of rice. It twists in your gut like a worm.
Silence clawed at my throat. It left a taste of burnt matches. — Franny Billingsley

Wearing a cloak is on Rose's list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand problems is ranked number one.
'But Dr. Rannigan says you must and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it's so full of holes.' I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction.
'Ventilated,' I said, 'that's the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated. — Franny Billingsley

Even a witch wants sympathy. — Franny Billingsley

You can outrun your memories, but sometime, you will have to stop. And when you do, there will always be Stepmother, waiting to be remembered. — Franny Billingsley

I don't mind the disapproving ones so much. It's the tolerant ones I can't stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don't realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They're just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century! — Franny Billingsley