Ruth Franklin Quotes & Sayings

Every description is calculated for what it reveals, both about the character to whom it refers and the person whose attitude it represents ... As always in these descriptions, she has a knack for the unexpected word: tropical fish in a mural swim "insanely," and the apple trees on Pepper Street produce "wry unpalatable fruit." In "Notes for a Young Writer," a lecture on writing fiction composed as advice to her daughter Sarah, Jackson would relish the "grotesque effect" of the "absolutely wrong word": " 'I will always love you,' he giggled. — Ruth Franklin

If one is bewildered and unhappy, why not show it, and why will not people explain and comfort? But instead - this pretense at calm satisfaction, where underneath there is all the seething restless desire to be off, away from all this anger at self and others, to where there are other conventions, other thoughts, other passions. — Ruth Franklin

Past the turn I might find a mark of Constance's foot, because she sometimes came that far to wait for me, but most of Constance's prints were in the garden and in the house. Today she had come to the end of the garden, and I saw her as soon as I came around the turn; she was standing with the house behind her, in the sunlight, and I ran to meet her. "Merricat," she said, smiling at me, "look how far I came today." - We Have Always Lived in the Castle — Ruth Franklin

Brown, they would later write, had taught them that the goal of reading and criticizing was "to know and understand, not to like or dislike, and the aim of writing was to get down what you wanted to say, not to gesticulate or impress. — Ruth Franklin

Moaning about how his own brilliance disadvantaged him was not a recipe for popularity. Stanley was initially as isolated in high school as Shirley would be in Rochester: "miserably lonely, reading prodigiously, hating everyone, and wishing I had enough courage to talk to girls." One day a boy he recognized from class sat down next to him in the locker room. Stanley, trying to make conversation as he best knew how, asked his classmate if he read Poe. "No, I read very well, thank you," came the reply. Stanley responded huffily that he didn't think puns were very clever. "I don't either," said the other boy, "but they're something I can't help, like a harelip. — Ruth Franklin

I have never liked the theory that poltergeists only come into houses where there are children, because I think it is simply too much for any one house to have poltergeists and children. - "The Ghosts of Loiret — Ruth Franklin