Franny Billingsley Quotes
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If you don't argue, you can't give in.
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He’s harmless, poor thing. That’s what everyone said. It was true, but who cares? Lots of people are harmless, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.
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The beach has a language of its own, with its undulating ribbons of silt, the imponderable hieroglyphs of bird tracks. The receding waves catch on innumerable holes in the sand. Bubbles form and fade. A new language, with a new alphabet.
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My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
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Did I kill him?” I said. “No, miss,” said Robert. “Pity.
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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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Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.
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Witches don’t look like anything. Witches are. Witches do.
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Actually, it would be assumed that the young lady had no such impulses at all, but I’ll tell you something: Chocolate melts on my tongue too.
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It's strange how a person can have a distinct distaste for herself, but still she clutches on to life.
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You mind your tongue!” “Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.
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Even a witch wants sympathy.
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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.
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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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Guess what it is that turns plants to coal. Pressure. Guess what it is that turns limestone to marble. Pressure. Guess what it is that turns Briony's heart to stone. Pressure. Pressure is uncomfortable, but so are the gallows. Keep your secrets, wolfgirl. Dance your fists with Eldric's, snatch lightning from the gods. Howl at the moon, at the blood-red moon. Let your mouth be a cavern of stars.
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It's the picnic principle. Things taste better outdoors. And if it's a forbidden thing, so much the better.
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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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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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Eavesdropping is such a regular-person activity.
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He scooped up my arm, swung me round. “Let go, Cecil,” I said. “I’ve a strange dislike of being forced.” “But Briony,” he said, “I’m so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!” Why didn’t he?
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I like rain and mist. I've never understood why people exclaim over bright skies and bushels of glaring sunshine.
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I am entirely well,” said Eldric, “which has Dr. Rannigan exploring first one theory, then another, trying to understand. But not being a man of science, I don’t care about understanding. I simply want to go outside and break a few windows.
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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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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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When Rose takes to screaming, she starts loud, continues loud, and ends loud. Rose has a very good ear and always screams on the same note. I'd tested her before I burnt the library, and our piano along with it. Rose screams on the note B flat. We don't need a piano anymore now that we have a human tuning fork.
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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.
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I’m not really the sacrificing type.
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Poor Petey. I’d like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I’d rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.
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I have some questions about betrayal,” I said. “Think about this: A person who calls you his best friend, and says he has dinner plans with you, goes off with a beautiful woman, saying he’ll be back directly, then makes you wait half an hour because he’s kissing the woman in the alley. Is that betrayal?” “Oh, Lord.” Eldric tossed back his wine.
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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.
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