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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

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Franny Billingsley
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: July 3
Author
Writer
Person
Worse
Thing
Quite
Much
Almost
Forget
Actually
Learns
Sound
Murderer
Another
Witch
Persons
Sounds

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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.
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Father sighed. “Please spare me these arguments of yours.” “Whose arguments should I use?
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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.
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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
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Even a witch wants sympathy.
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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It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.
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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.
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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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Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
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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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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.
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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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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 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
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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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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?
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If you don't argue, you can't give in.
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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.
Franny Billingsley