Franny 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

We're freaks, the two of us, Franny and I. I'm a twenty-five-year-old freak and she's a twenty-one-year-old freak, and both those bastards are responsible. I swear to you, I could murder them both without batting an eyelash. The great teachers. The great emancipators. My God. I can't even sit down to lunch with a man any more and hold up my end of a decent conversation. I either get so bored or so goddamn preachy that if the son of a bitch had any sense, he'd break his chair over my head — J.D. Salinger

Franny was among the first of the girls to get off the train, from a car at the far, northern end of the platform. Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth. Franny saw it, and him, and waved extravagantly back. She was wearing a sheared-raccoon coat, and Lane, walking to- ward her quickly but with a slow face, reasoned to himself, with suppressed excitement, that he was the only one on the platform who really knew Franny's coat. He remembered that once, in a borrowed car, after kissing Franny for a half hour or so, he had kissed her coat lapel, as though it were a perfectly desirable, organic extension of the person herself. — J.D. Salinger

My all-time favorite rock and roll players were Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and Franny Beecher, and I listened to the country playing of Merle Travis. — Alvin Lee

When Olivia leaves the room, I move to follow, but Franny steps into my path.

"Oh no, you stay here."

"Simon," I say with a scowl, "collect your wife before I say something I'll regret."

But Franny just tilts her head, appraising me. "I used to think you were a selfish bastard, but I'm starting to believe you're just a fool. A double-damned idiot. I'm not sure which is worse."

"Then I guess it's good that I don't give a turtle's arse-crack about your opinion of me. — Emma Chase

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

Of course: because it was in one of the camps that he went blind. They had performed some failed experiment on his eyes in the camp.
'No, not summer camp,' Franny had to tell Lilly, who had always been afraid of being sent to summer camp, and was unsurprised to hear that they tortured the campers. — John Irving

Alex touches her arm. "You look nice."
"Nice?" she repeats. "Try harder, Alex."
He flushes adorably. "Really nice," he says.
"Next time, try this," Harry says. He reaches for my hand. "Franny, I didn't know what beauty was until I saw you walking toward us a minute ago.
"I like this better," I say, pulling away. "At least he sounded like he meant it."
"I meant it," Harry says, almost irritably. — Claire LaZebnik

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

Rosy's mummy hands Franny a clear plastic bag full of reject biscuits, then Rosy holds her cheek out for Franny's wet kiss. Rosy wipes the slime from her face and Franny cackles, then shows them both into the lounge.
There on Franny's coffee table is a biscuit tin with a Christmas picture on the lid. Proper shop-bought biscuits, not factory rejects.
"Please, may I have a biscuit?" Rosy says.
"Oh, there are no biscuits in that my darling," Franny says, and pulls the tin from Rosy's prying fingers. Franny holds open the bag of crumb-speckled chocolate digestives. "Help yourself, my wee hen."
Rosy settles for a reject.
Franny puts the Christmas tin up high, way up high, way out of reach. — R.G. Manse

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

Lord love you," Ms. Eulalie said, "but you tell lies like Ms. Franny sings: hard to listen to and even harder to believe. — Kristin Walker

Yes, it was true that Franny had gotten thicker in the last decade, but that was what happened unless you were a high-functioning psychotic, and she had other things to think about. Franny knew plenty of women who had chosen to prioritize the eternal youth of their bodies, and they were all miserable creatures, their taut triceps unable to conceal their dissatisfaction with their empty stomachs and unfulfilling lives. Franny liked to eat, and to feed people, and she wasn't embarrassed that her body displayed such proclivities. — Emma Straub

Like snowflakes,' Franny said,'none of them the same and yet each one, from where we stand, exactly like the one before — Alice Sebold

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

Rosy waited as long as she dared then sat forward and let her eye rove Franny's lounge, up and down the shelves, looking for something, not even sure she could bring herself to act if she saw it again, already convinced this was her worst ever idea — R.G. Manse

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

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

Franny liked this moment most of all: being alone in the kitchen after almost everything was finished, and listening to the assembled guests chatting happily, knowing they were soon to be fed. — Emma Straub

All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn't listen to, won't remember, never got right, wasn't around for. All — Ann Patchett

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

Franny gave her sister a tired smile. "Oh, my love," she said. "What do the only children do?"

"We'll never have to know," Caroline said. — Ann Patchett

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

Not a lot of contemporary fiction is written about brothers and sisters. Salinger's Franny and Zooey was an inspiration for me. In Franny and Zooey, the sister gets in trouble and the brother comes to help her out. But I wanted to make sure that in my novel the sister had more to do than lie around on a sofa muttering, which is what Franny does for two-thirds of Salinger's novel. — K.M. Soehnlein

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

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

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

Lane watched her for a moment with mounting irritation. Quite probably, he resented and feared any signs of detachment in a girl he was seriously dating. In any case, he surely was concerned over the possibility that this bug Franny had might bitch up the whole weekend. — J.D. Salinger

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

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

Now whenever Franny or Jim spoke to someone who kept a car in Manhattan, they reacted with quiet horror, like people who'd been subjected to the rantings of a mentally ill person at a cocktail party. — Emma Straub

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

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

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 was about seven years old. In my mother's garage I used to create plays and star in them and charge the neighborhood kids five cents to see them. It was a lot of fun. — Franny Armstrong

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

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

Forge ahead, O mighty enforcer of the law. May you be stout of heart and eardrum. — 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 always carry a notepad with me, even on vacation. If I'm on the computer when the story 'hits', I open a Word document and start typing until I get it all out. I've got tons of notes that I never throw out. You never know when a story will strike! — Franny Armstrong

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

You've got a goddamn bug today - you know that? What the hell's the matter with you anyway?"
Franny quickly tipped her cigarette ash, then brought the ashtray an inch closer to her side of the table. "I'm sorry. I'm awful," she said. "I've just felt so destructive all week. It's awful. I'm horrible."
"Your letter didn't sound so goddamn destructive."
Franny nodded solemnly. She was looking at a little warm blotch of sunshine, about the size of a poker chip, on the tablecloth. "I had to strain to write it," she said. — J.D. Salinger

For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands. — J.D. Salinger

I made my first film McLibel independently but only by accident. I tried to get a commission from all the standard TV broadcasters but because they had been sued by McDonald's in the past none of them would commission me so I ended up making it by credit cards and rich boyfriends (I'm joking - about the boyfriends). — Franny Armstrong

Your guilt's got nothing on my guilt," Franny said. "Your guilt isn't even in the ballpark. — Ann Patchett

Some people smoked crack in alleyways. Franny ate chocolate. On the scale of things, it seemed entirely reasonable. — Emma Straub

Even a witch wants sympathy. — Franny Billingsley

Mrs. Glass watched him pull it on. She didn't stay for the tying of the lace, however.
Instead, she left the room. — J.D. Salinger

For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger than myself, and often entirely the Lady), to take off his or her galoshes on coming into the apartment, each and all of them knew he mostly meant that the floor would get tracked up if they didn't and that Bessie would have to get out the mop. When I told them to take off their galoshes, they knew I mostly meant that people who didn't were slobs. It was bound to make no small difference in the way they kidded or ragged us separately. — J.D. Salinger

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

But even in September, Thursday was a big money night, seven to eight hundred take-home, and that's what April concentrated on as she drove, Franny's chin starting to loll against her chest - April made herself think of that fat roll of tens and twenties she'd have at closing, how she'd fold it into the front pocket of her jeans then go to the house mom's office off the dressing room and give Tina a hundred before she found Franny in her pj's on Tina's brown vinyl couch, and she'd try not to think of the walls above Tina's desk covered with dancers' schedules and audition Polaroids of naked women, some of them under postcards from girls who came and went. — Andre Dubus III

In a matter of only a few seconds, in fact, her eyes appeared to jettison everything that was dark and heavy and to glow with fan-club appreciation. — J.D. Salinger

No domestic dispute between Franny and David had inspired the removal of their wedding rings. She would take hers off at work when she was giving scalp massages. Once she thought she had lost the ring, but she found it in the treatment room on a candleholder David had made for her during a personal failure of a pottery class he had taken the year he lost his job. After she found her ring, she started leaving it at home. — Amelia Gray

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

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

I have always thought that the role of the film-maker is to present the argument persuasively, emotionally and coherently and then it is over to the viewer, they are either convinced or not convinced, moved or not moved and they decide whether they will take action or not. — Franny Armstrong

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 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

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

Franny?" Rosy held up the four little Franks. "Could I keep one of these?"
Franny looked at her hard for a moment then nodded. "'Course you can, hen," she said, "But that's not your daddy."
Rosy gaped. "It's not?"
"That's my wee darling. That's my wee Frankie before the devil twisted him into a monster." She poked her finger into another hole where Frank's face should have been. Her eyes glinted. — R.G. Manse

Thirty-seven of them will be about shy, reclusive pennsylvania dutch lesbian who wants to write, told first-person by a lecherous hired hand. In dialect. — J.D. Salinger

Silence is golden for me. I live in the country and hear only my pets, birds, crickets, and the wind in the trees. — Franny Armstrong

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

I am a true psychic. In my family it's the norm. My sister and mother are always 'in my head' and say or do the same things I'm doing at the same time. — Franny Armstrong

Some producer actually told Franny that profanity revealed a poor vocabulary and a lack of imagination. And Frank and Lilly and Father and I all loved to shout at Franny, then, and ask her what she had said to that. 'What an anal crock of shit, you dumb asshole!' she'd told the producer. 'Up yours - and in your ear, too! — John Irving

I'm on Facebook and the Internet EVERY DAY NUMEROUS TIMES A DAY.Sorry about the shouting but I can't help myself. My mother said her dog (a lapdog) never sits on my lap because I always have the laptop on it. — Franny Armstrong

I realised what a powerful position you are in if you own the rights to your film because then you control the distribution and I ended up getting 25 million viewers for McLibel and that's what it's all about for me. — Franny Armstrong

Safer than we are." I told Franny. "Safer than love." "let me tell ya kid," Franny said to me, squeezing my hand. "Everything's safer than love. — John Irving

I know this much, is all," Franny said. "If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything. The ones you're talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head and leave something there. — J.D. Salinger

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

Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody's existence on this planet? Clearly we don't really think they should be blown up, that's just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?" [] "We 'killed' five people to make No Pressure - a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change — Franny Armstrong

I am not interested in having somebody telling that what I have to water down my message or that some advertising person would not like it. — Franny Armstrong

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

Lane himself lit a cigarette as the train pulled in. Then, like so many people, who, perhaps, ought to be issued only a very probational pass to meet trains, he tried to empty his face of all expression that might quite simply, perhaps even beautifully, reveal how he felt about the arriving person.
Franny was among the first of the girls to get off the train, from a car at the far, northern end of the platform. Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth. — J.D. Salinger

Somebody's going to have to make the money to buy you all those books."
"They're free," Franny said. "I check them out of the library."
"Well, thank God for libraries," Caroline said. — Ann Patchett

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

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 go to Franny's in Brooklyn a lot. It's just a casual Italian place, but I could eat there every day. — Daniel Humm

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

Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven't a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell. — J.D. Salinger

I'm usually a panster and throw ideas down on computer the second they hit my brain. I even had to get off the treadmill to write down my ideas. It's a great place to 'zone out' and think about my plots and characters. — Franny Armstrong

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

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 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