Quote

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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Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
Writer
Things
Proper
Beat
Beats
Already
Boys
Cecil
Shall
Touchy
Tell
Beating
Didn
Properly

More quotes by 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.
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Did I kill him?” I said. “No, miss,” said Robert. “Pity.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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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If you don't argue, you can't give in.
Franny Billingsley
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I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.
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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.
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Even a witch wants sympathy.
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My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
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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.
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Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
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You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.
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It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.
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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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.
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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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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.
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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