Quotes from Franny Billingsley

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.

How can something as fragile as a word build the whole world?

It's strange how a person can have a distinct distaste for herself, but still she clutches on to life.

Should I ever again sink into illness, I'm sure I'll remember Eldric. I'll remember he cared for me. I'll remember that someone had at least taken the time to touch my face.

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.

If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world?

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?

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.

It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.

Witches don't look like anything. Witches are. Witches do.

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.

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.

You mind your tongue!" "Oh, I do," I said. "I sharpen it every evening on your name.

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.

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.

You could at least complain," I say. "I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.

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.

Father sighed. "Please spare me these arguments of yours." "Whose arguments should I use?

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 was asking about lust, wasn't I? I was fairly certain of it. But isn't love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.

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.

But witchy magic doesn't listen to please and pretty please, and anyway, I didn't really care. I only pretended to care because not caring makes me a monster.

Even a witch wants sympathy.

I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way.