Quotes by Franny Billingsley

About Franny Billingsley:

Franny Billingsley 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Franny Billingsley

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...

Franny Billingsley

I have a theory about how she might have managed to pull off such a feat. It comes in the form of an equation: Love + Fear = Herculean Strength. It’s how mothers come to fling runaway motorcars from their children.

Franny Billingsley

I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it’s not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that’s how we...

Franny Billingsley

There’s such a thing as being irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “That’s you, right now.” That’s a pleasant change. Witches are rarely accused of being irritatingly ethical. “I’ve swigged.” I handed the bottle to Eldric. “Or is i...

Franny Billingsley

You could write your way into happiness. It might not be the happiness you'd experience if Eldric pushed Leanne from a cliff, but there's a firefly glimmer in writing something that would please Rose.

Franny Billingsley

Once we got to eating, the idea of happiness returned to me. Not the feeling, the idea. Would a regular girl be happy simply eating a hot meal with a great deal of chew to it? Maybe happiness is a simple thing. Maybe it's as simple as the salty taste...

Franny Billingsley

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

Franny Billingsley

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

There are no preconditions for jealousy. You don't have to be right, you don't have to be reasonable.

Franny Billingsley

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...

Franny Billingsley

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, it's good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall do...

Franny Billingsley

We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other ...

Franny Billingsley

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?

Franny Billingsley

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.

Franny Billingsley

Meaning. If you're going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.

Franny Billingsley

You can outrun your memories, but sometime, you will have to stop. And when you do, there will always be Stepmother, waiting to be remembered.

Franny Billingsley

Boxing’s not that straightforward,” said Eldric. “You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.

Franny Billingsley

I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list

Franny Billingsley

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...

Franny Billingsley

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 do...

Franny Billingsley

Author Bio

  • NameFranny Billingsley
  • DescriptionAmerican children's writer
  • BornJuly 3, 1954
  • ProfessionWriter