The Robber Girl Quotes

“I knew that tune, but I couldn't remember it. It hovered on the edge of my mind. I tried to grab it, but you can't just grab your memories. You have to pretend not to pay attention to them, which makes them mad. You have to trick them into sneaking up on you from behind.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl

“The Blue Rose's Precepts went like this:
Accept your sorrows,
If you cannot change them
Embrace your joys,
So you don't estrange them.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl

“You'd think you could count on your feelings, but no: they scurry around like mice, leaving horrid droppings wherever they go. You're always having to clean up behind them.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl

“When you stop time, you don't accept your sorrows. When you stop time, you want everything to be the way it was before.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl

“Wax was good. Wax was soft. Wax couldn't shatter like china. Wax was as beautiful as china.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl

“I hadn't noticed the tiles in the regular-size house. They were painted to look like flowers. I saw the dollhouse better than I'd seen the real room. That was because it was small and concentrated. Gentleman Jack had told me about distillation, how you take a liquid and boil it so that at the end there's less liquid but it's purer. It's more truly its own self.”
― Franny Billingsley, The Robber Girl