Ashleigh > Ashleigh's Quotes

“It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“You mind your tongue!”
“Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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.”
― 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

“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, Chime

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed
to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Did I kill him?” I said.

“No, miss,” said Robert.

“Pity.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Father sighed. “Please spare me these arguments of yours.”

“Whose arguments should I use?”
― 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

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Blast Cecil!” said Eldric.

“You have my permission,” I said.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Despite her cough, Rose was in unusually good spirits. That was irritating. If I’m to trade my life for Rose’s, I’d appreciate her exhibiting a touch of melancholy. Also acceptable would be despair.”
― 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

“Even a witch wants sympathy.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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?”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I've confessed to everything and I'd liked to be hanged.

Now, if you please.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please.

I don't mean to be difficult, but I can't bear to tell my story. I can't relive those memories—the touch of the Dead Hand, the smell of eel, the gulp and swallow of the swamp. How can you possibly think me innocent? Don't let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.

I know you believe you're giving me a chance—or, rather, it's the Chime Child giving me the chance. She's desperate, of course, not to hang an innocent girl again, but please believe me: Nothing in my story will absolve me of guilt. It will only prove what I've already told you, which is that I'm wicked. Can't the Chime Child take my word for it?

In any event, where does she expect me to begin? The story of a wicked girl has no true beginning. I'd have to begin with the day I was born.

If Eldric were to tell the story, he'd likely begin with himself, on the day he arrived in the Swampsea. That's where proper stories begin, don't they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?

But this isn't a proper story, and I'm telling you, I ought to be hanged.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I’m not really the sacrificing type.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I’d rather be in Hell with my soul and wits, than in the outside world without them.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“My own mask stayed just where it ought. I’ve had lots of practice.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Thoughts are strange creatures. They lead you from one thing to another. Sometimes you don’t know how you got from one to the next.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“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, Chime

“A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime