Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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It’s a funny thing. You go your whole life thinking you’re the protagonist, but really, you’re just backstory.
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A prophetic world that can never come true.
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She must protect herself. There would be no one to do it for her. A plan started to prick up its ears inside her, slowly, but getting stronger.
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He had not guessed how much of the body of a Quest was simply walking.
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No one says a word that has not been spoken a thousand times before, a thousand thousand times, and even the first of those was a repetition of words that came before.
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I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.
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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.
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This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.
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She leaned in, and kissed her Marid gently, sweetly. She tried to kiss him the way she’d always thought kisses would be. His lips tasted like the sea.
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She wasn’t angry. You can’t get angry just because the world’s so much bigger than you and you’re stuck in it.
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It is important to announce your intentions at top volume, she thought, or your intentions will think you are ashamed of them.
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Love me, and I will laugh for you, and if you can make me laugh, my laughter will, quite simply, ransom the whole of the world from death.
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September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself.
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Thing is, just because you make a body shiver don’t make it yours.
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Your past’s a private matter, sweetheart. You just keep it locked up in a box where it can’t hurt anyone.
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September had only had coffee once, when her Aunt Margaret had snuck her a sip while her mother wasn’t looking. It tasted bitter, but wild and strange. She rather wanted to taste it again.
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Perhaps my philosophy is not so sophisticated. It goes: Come inside. I love you. A Whelk's love will grow as big as it's allowed.
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And if they thought her aimless, if they thought her a bit mad, let them. It meant they left her alone. Marya was not aimless, anyway. She was thinking.
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In my experience, folk find it nigh on impossible to call a thing what it is.
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A tale may have exactly three beginnings: one for the audience, one for the artist, and one for the poor bastard who has to live in it.
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A house is a kind of box you put a girl in.
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War must always be done out of sight, or it shocks people and they stop immediately.
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After so long keeping to herself and tending her secret quietly, all these words just bubbled up out of her her like cool golden champagne.
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But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt.