Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“It's home—all the home there is—anywhere!”
- Source
- Miss Billy
- Date
- 1911
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Billy Neilson
Meaning of “It's home—all the home there is—anywhere!”
Billy’s outburst shows how strongly a place and the people within it can become home precisely when circumstances make her think she must leave them.
Where does it come from?
Miss Billy, Chapter XVI, ‘Kate Takes a Hand,’ Project Gutenberg #3266. The line ‘It's home—all the home there is—anywhere!’ occurs at the end of the chapter after Billy decides to leave the Henshaw household because she fears disrupting it; Chapter XVII begins immediately afterward. It is Billy Neilson's distressed fictional speech about a specific domestic conflict, not a general rule about family, belonging or housing.
Why the local voice matters
Miss Billy. Billy says this while crying after deciding she must leave the Henshaw household despite experiencing it as home; the line belongs to a specific fictional conflict.