Quote

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
Writer
Means
Tell
Tail
Doesn
Tails
Back
Poem
Come
Circles
Mean
Guess
Eating
Making

More quotes by Franny Billingsley

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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
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Imagine a world without shadows. You cannot touch a shadow, but a world without them is a hard world, and flat.
Franny Billingsley
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My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
Franny Billingsley
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If you don't argue, you can't give in.
Franny Billingsley
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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
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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
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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
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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
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You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
Franny Billingsley
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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
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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
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Did I kill him?” I said. “No, miss,” said Robert. “Pity.
Franny Billingsley
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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
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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
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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
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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
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People think me a sort of Florence Nightingale, but I have no heroic qualities. I simply don’t feel very much.
Franny Billingsley
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Even a witch wants sympathy.
Franny Billingsley
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Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
Franny Billingsley
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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