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You and I, we're no good at telling a story straight. It won't come off right. Like a dog reciting a sonnet. Impressive, but how much better to let him howl?
Catherynne M. Valente -
He missed you like a fish in a bowl misses the open sea.
Catherynne M. Valente
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I suppose if you have ten children one of them might go into government, which is the same as losing a child really.
Catherynne M. Valente -
...what maiden knows how the world is skewed to spare any testing of her virtue?
Catherynne M. Valente -
Except that her joints ached and her head hurt and it tasted like a vorcha had shit in her mouth.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Geography was fungible, fluid, unreliable.
Catherynne M. Valente -
What’s the difference between being dead and having a boyfriend? Death sticks around.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Time is no one's friend - time has no social niceties and holds the door for nobody nowhere. But I hold the door for time, with my one good paw.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Mug your destiny in an alley and punch it until it gives you what you want
Catherynne M. Valente -
Conservatism is not an attractive trait.
Catherynne M. Valente -
SF raised me, and I think it did a damn fine job. It at least removed a lot of potential sources of anxiety.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Omaha is no place for anybody.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Maybe [Snow White] never wakes up. More likely than anything else, really. You can’t kiss a girl into anything.
Catherynne M. Valente -
I am certainly intrepid and splendid and sordid and strong; I can see why you'd want me! But I'm afraid I've left the kettle on or whatever it is people say when they're bored.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That's the only way to live in the awful old ocean.
Catherynne M. Valente -
And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.
Catherynne M. Valente -
And there’s nothing wrong with spinsters, anyway. They have nice cats and little bowls full of candy. Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Newitz are the kindest ladies you’ll ever meet, and they have nips of whiskey in their tea like cowboys.
Catherynne M. Valente -
A girl who never smiles has such power - what men will do to turn up but one corner of her mouth! She already wears her red war-gown and her circlet of cinnabar poppies. They bring out the color in her grimace.
Catherynne M. Valente -
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 press it to her cheek, then closed her fingers, as if Marya's hand were in hers. 'With difficulty, and grief.
Catherynne M. Valente -
You cannot escape where you come from, September. Some part of it remains inside you always, like the slender white heart in the center of the thickest onion.
Catherynne M. Valente
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You have to be able to see the world as a whole to bear it - to see the Queerness that moves in every bit
Catherynne M. Valente -
Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.
Catherynne M. Valente -
She didn't like to say things flatly, but sometimes it is the perfect antidote to someone trying to convince you the noose in their hand is a lovely silk ribbon for your hair.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Being Necessary is food no less than cabbages and strawberry pies.
Catherynne M. Valente