Catherynne M. Valente

Quotes

• “I won't be one of the hundreds telling you that being alive flows like a story you write consciously, deliberately, full...”
• “I will never be without information,' she determined. 'I will do better than my sisters. If a bird or any other beast co...”
• “Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let ...”
• “How we would like to argue with September, and tell her that in the waiting lies the pleasure! That we here in the world...”
• “Sibyl, what do you want?”“I want to live,” the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. “I want to keep on living f...”
• “September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself. She could not quite have put it into words, but...”
• “But the trouble is, I do want to be surprised. I want to choose. I broke the heart of my fate so that I could choose. I ...”
• “This maze is laid out such that should you step through the correct path, by its end you will have learned the most extr...”
• “I used to look up at night and dream of the solar system. I know, I know—who didn't? But your own dreams seem so special...”
• “Here’s something I bet you don’t know: every time someone writes a story about a dragon a real dragon dies. Something ab...”
• “Marya Morevna, we are better at this than you are. We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. Never have your...”
• “Welcome to the American sector! Feast your eyes on glorious Pluto, her wild frontier, her high standard of living, her r...”
• “Their happiness was the kind which is fashioned of the comfortable disorder of sauvignon bottles and coffee cups in the ...”
• “8. Santa Claus is concerned about the problem of Arctic ice. The ice is the spouse of the elves, and she is sick. She is...”
• “But she never could keep it straight. All the letters, the acronyms, the codes, the colors, changing like musical chairs...”
• “Names aren't loners, they're connected, even in real life. You name your kids for someone dead or what you hope they wil...”
• “For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw...”
• “When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present momen...”
• “That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until e...”
• “I do so love my witches and wicked queens. I find myself drawn to feminine archetypes that previous generations have fou...”
• “When you argue with verve in your saddlebags, you are extremely alive. That is why you yell and holler and shake your fi...”
• “You haven't met your Way yet. It hasn't so much as kissed your hand! You haven't even at the door of the hall where your...”
• “Very well, you do so love rules! I shall make some up for you on the spot, so that my little moppet is not forced to wan...”
• “September laughed and her laugh sounded like a roar; as if she had never been able to properly laugh in her whole life, ...”
• “Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a maid...”
• “However wretched her origins, she chose freely to continue her crimes against us from the moment she woke to this life. ...”
• “Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share. That's lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about wh...”
• “I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don't re...”
• “I’m a monster,” said the shadow of the Marquess suddenly. “Everyone says so.” The Minotaur glanced up at her. “So are we...”
• “Finally, she said: “I’m lonely” — it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old...”
• “The tales lovers tell each other about how they met are hushed and secret things. They change year by year, for we all m...”
• “Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interest...”
• “We treat our stone wives with much more care than they treat their warm ones, anyway. I personally dust mine once a week...”
• “September suddenly realized something. "But Ell, Orrery begins with O! How can you know so much about it?"The Wyverary s...”
• “RULES OF FAIRYLAND-BELOWBEWARE OF DOGANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXESDO NOT STEAL QUEENSA GIRL IN THE WILD I...”
• “A heart can learn ever so many tricks, and what sort of beast it becomes depends greatly upon whether it has been taught...”
• “When spring comes, I shall meet you at the Municipal Library, and you will see how much I've learned! You'll be so proud...”
• “You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat....”
• “Yes, Marya thought, the smell of woodsmoke and old snow pushing back her long black hair. Magic does that. It wastes you...”
• “You will live as you live in any world,' Madame Lebedeva said. She reached out her hand as if to grasp Marya's, as if to...”
• “And in her long nights, in her long house of smoke and miller's stones, she baked the bread we eat in dreams, strangest ...”
• “When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just m...”
• “A Fairy must make her own way in the world, for the world will never make way for her. That, incidentally, is the First ...”
• “I’m not a Knight. I’m a Bishop. Or at least I am trying to be. And traveling with you is the most slantwise, backward th...”
• “I do not serve your personal issues, Morevna. I serve the People, and the People will have crimes against their body ans...”
• “The Glasshobs built it to keep an eye on the stars, who have a tendency to run off on adventures and forget about how mu...”
• “I savor bitterness — it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to p...”
• “Did you never wonder why the old books are so full of dragons chasing after maidens? The serpents think the girls are or...”
• “Towns can be cruel and vicious -- and sorry. In the wood, in the clearing, in the sun, we will one day find and crown he...”
• “Those were all big words, to be sure, but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not p...”