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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
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Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
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Doesn
Tails
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Come
Circles
Mean
Guess
Eating
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More quotes by 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
Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
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
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
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
It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.
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
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
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
Father sighed. “Please spare me these arguments of yours.” “Whose arguments should I use?
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
I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.
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
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
You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
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
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
If you don't argue, you can't give in.
Franny Billingsley
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
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