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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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Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
Writer
Lived
Seventeen
Hear
Complain
Persons
Sister
Person
Complaining
Years
Wearing
Like
Killed
Shoes
Rose

More quotes by Franny Billingsley

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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
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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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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
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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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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
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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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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
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Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
Franny Billingsley
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Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.
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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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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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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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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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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You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
Franny Billingsley
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Did I kill him?” I said. “No, miss,” said Robert. “Pity.
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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I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.
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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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