Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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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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It was on the to-do list, but you know to-do lists. They get longer and longer until you might as well just carve the last items on your tombstone. Do the dishes.
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She did not want to read this book from start to finish, or rather, she thought perhaps it did not want her to. Instead she practiced the art of bibliomancy, trusting the book to show her what it wanted her to know.
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The hinterlands. Where the criminals and the carnivals and the concatenating counterfeiters of no morals to speak of make a home.
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No one is now what they were before the war. There’s just no getting any of it back.
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Bran felt terribly sorry for his sisters, but it was hardly his fault that the world was so determined to make girls suffer a great deal more than boys. He hadn’t built the world. It had nothing to do with him.
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I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard - one choice is never the end of the story.
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It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.
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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.
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Eternity takes forever. The infinite expanse of time just does not know when to quit.
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Love is what grown folk do to each other because the law frowns on killing.
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It is such hard work to keep your heart hidden! And worse, by the time you find it easy, it will be harder still to show it.
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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.
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The Land of Parents is strange and full of peril.
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A girl in want of a Leopard still has feet.
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A dragon looks like a girl when it is young.
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It is a terrible magic in this world to ask for exactly the thing you want. Not least because to know exactly the thing you want and look it in the eye is a long, long labor.
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There must be a way! I have begun a Quest! Quests do not simply end. You win or you lose; it is not just suddenly over.
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I believe we have an utterly unique specimen on our hands: a child who listens.
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I readied myself for the great effort of speaking with the throat-and-belly instead of the mind-and-heart. It is altogether a different skill.
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And Miss Oleander Coy had herself a blue mouth. Little stains at the edges of her raspberry lips where she put her pen when she was thinking, which was always.
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...the beginning is where the end gets born.
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That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory.
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Close up your head; your brain is getting loose.