Quote

It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.

Franny Billingsley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
Writer
Like
Well
Use
Hidden
Patch
World
Nothing
True
Landscape
Navigate
Matter
Didn
Dust
Patches
Looks
Anything
Depth
Depths
Enough
Persons
Move
Trip
Shallows
Really
Ideas
Eye
Flat
Tricked
Way
Person
Idea
Flats
Speck
Life
Wells
Moving
Sunlight
Specks

More quotes by Franny Billingsley

Image
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
Image
My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
Franny Billingsley
Image
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
Image
You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
Franny Billingsley
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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, its good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall down.
Franny Billingsley
Image
I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.
Franny Billingsley
Image
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
Image
Even a witch wants sympathy.
Franny Billingsley
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Father sighed. “Please spare me these arguments of yours.” “Whose arguments should I use?
Franny Billingsley
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you don't argue, you can't give in.
Franny Billingsley