Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
First, the avid student must be aware that when the world was young it knew only seven things: water, life and death, salt, night, birds and the length of an hour.
All things are strange which are worth knowing.
No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.
I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.
... relationships required such vigilance, such attention. You had to hold them together by force of will, and other people took up so much space, demanded so much time. It was exhausting.
I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.
She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.
I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?
In both marriage and war you must cut up the things people say like a cake and eat only what you can stomach.
Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.
It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.
It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.
September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.
Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.
Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
Your past's a private matter, sweetheart. You just keep it locked up in xbox where it can't hurt anyone.
As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.
It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.
The great blessing and great cruelty of youth is that there seems to be time enough.
It's Latin, which is an excellent language for mischief-making, which is why governments are so fond of it.
I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.
But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.
If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life.
Truly, Autumn is my season,” the scarlet beast chorted. “Spring and Summer and Winter all begin with such late letters! But Autumn and Fall, I have loved best, because they are best to love.
Perhaps all a Tsaritsa is is a beautiful cold girl in the snow, looking down at someone wretched, and not yielding.
When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.
If I stop, I shall sink and die. That's the way I'm made. I have to keep going always, and even when I get where I'm going, I'll have to keep on. That's living.
I burn, I freeze; I am never warm. I am rigid; I forgot softness because it did not serve me.
Readers will always insist on adventures, and though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.
Woman! Come out! I have—" She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
You were so near death that ghosts crowded around you, weeping silver tears, waiting for you with such smiles. You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.
You're not in love if you keep your own heart bricked up behind your bones. You're only playing.
I hope, in years to come, I shall hold my heart up and it will be a pane of clear glass, through which I see all, but nothing is distorted.
Whenever one does extraordinary things, someone is bound to try to repeat them for themselves. It's the way of the world.
We all have someone we think shines so much more than we do that we are not even a moon to their sun, but a dead little rock floating in space next to their gold and their blaze.
…everything has a narrative, really, and if you can’t understand a story and relate to it, figure out how you fit inside it, you’re not really alive at all.
Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.