“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 of pork, and the vast deal of chewing in it, and how, when the chew is gone, you can still scrape at the bone with your bottom teeth and suck at the marrow.”
Franny Billingsley“Meaning. If you're going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime“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, Chime“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, Chime“Even a witch wants sympathy.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime“Witches don’t look like anything. Witches are. Witches do.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime“There are no preconditions for jealousy. You don't have to be right, you don't have to be reasonable.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime“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, Chime“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 is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime“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, Chime“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.”
Franny Billingsley, Chime