Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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Oh, come on, you must know ‘Leave It Black.’ I see a black door and I’m extremely satisfied with how it looks?
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The Glasshobs built it to keep an eye on the stars, who have a tendency to run off on adventures and forget about how much we down-below folks need to navigate and cast horoscopes and meet lovers on balconies.
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It's easier to use somebody if you can think of them as mute and dumb and made for your pleasure.
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Now, in the Kingdom of School, to be asked into another child's room is like being asked inside their heart.
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So a half-breed goatsnake, a Yith, and a Ghast walk into a bar.
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How else are you supposed to deal with people who like terrible things? Hit them with a shovel till they stop, that’s how.
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Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. You’ll never wish you’d held back a little more.
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…but she does not know whom she wishes to catch, only that she wishes to catch someone, anyone, to be anchored, to be connected, to not be abandoned.
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It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.
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In my mind I know the name of an ocean the size of everything that was. My mouth can only call it death.
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I belong in the refrigerator. Because the truth is, I'm just food for a superhero. He'll eat up my death and get the energy he needs to become a legend.
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She was ... unhappy. It was part of her, you could not separate her from it. She was sad the way a horse is strong or a bird flies.
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"Don't trust metaphors," the wombat snorted. "If you let things start claiming to mean other things, there's no limit on how many things they can mean!"
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War must always be done out of sight, it shocks people and they stop immediately.
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All hands drowned, except the Red Hound of Mykenos, who bit the sea until it spit him back.
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But we had young turnips and mustard greens in our befuddled stomach that day, and these things make bravery.
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Shadows are where magic comes from. Your dark and dancing self, slipping behind and ahead and around, never quite looking at the sun.
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A Sibyl is a door shaped like a girl.
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Falling in love is embarrassing. It is not hardcore. It is not part of the scene.
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I thought: this is how you make a human being. A human being is beautiful and sick. A human being glitters and starves.
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Maidens stand still, they are lovely statues and all admire them. Witches do not stand still. I was neither, but better that I err on the side of witchery, witchery that unlocks towers and empties ships.
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Doors opened at seven, the show started at eight. In pubs and clubs and house parties across the galaxy, the viewers at home were drunk by six.
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Everything good in the world has feathers and wings and claws.
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Didn't you know? All stepmothers are witches. It is our compensation for remaining forever an intruder in another woman's house.