Franny Billingsley (born July 3, 1954) is the author of three award-winning children's fantasy novels, Well Wished, The Folk Keeper, and Chime, and the picture book Big Bad Bunny.
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.
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.
I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list
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.
I’m not really the sacrificing type.
A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.
Meaning. If you're going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.
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.
It's strange how a person can have a distinct distaste for herself, but still she clutches on to life.
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.
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.
I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.
I don’t mind the disapproving ones so much. It’s the tolerant ones I can’t stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don’t realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They’re just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century!
This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort upon me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It's not so much the comfort itself as knowing there's someone who wants to take care of you.
Even a witch wants sympathy.
My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.
I should hate to be a regular girl with a sugar-plum voice. I should hate to have swan-like lashes, and a thick, sooty neck. I sound as though I’m joking, I know, but I should truly hate to be like Leanne, so charming and ordinary and stuffed with clichéd feelings. I’m glad I’m the ice maiden. Who wants to be crying over every stray dog? Not I. Scratch my surface and what do you see? More surface.
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?
Perhaps you should put your head down. ” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.
I've confessed to everything and I's liked to be hanged. Now, if you please