Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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There are many sorts of lies. You could fill a shop with them. To be sure, lies are terribly common.
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Conservatism is not an attractive trait.
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SF raised me, and I think it did a damn fine job. It at least removed a lot of potential sources of anxiety.
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I think this is very strange - All things are strange which are worth knowing (...).
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Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.
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Except that her joints ached and her head hurt and it tasted like a vorcha had shit in her mouth.
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Mug your destiny in an alley and punch it until it gives you what you want
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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.
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Magic has a logic, like algebra. Once you get to know it, it's easy. If this, then that. You write with a pencil, you don't make frog soup with it.
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My master lit a candle in the long midwinter's past Now summer comes and all the fields are burning black and fast.
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He considers it for a moment and spits out the seeds, which sprout, quickly, into tiny junk blossoms sizzling with recursive algorithms. The algorithms wriggle through thorny vines, veins of clotted pink juice.
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Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself.
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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.
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I’ve no idea what I shall do when I am grown! I don’t suppose there is much call for Knights or Bishops or Heroines in Omaha or even Chicago. And I’m sure other girls are much better at it than I.
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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.
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It calmed him to collect the things he knew and did not speak of.
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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.
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It’s in our blood - we heard their distresses like a rung bell in our bones.
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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.
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Tamburlaine's house seemed more a place where books kept their people than where people kept their books.
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I want to skip this part. I want to pull on the arm of my slot machine and let the rolls flip over until they show a green tree in the summertime, and me away from that house, walking tall under a blue sky.
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Don't you know how far women stretch?
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“Am I truly such a villain? Is it really a cage if it’s the size of the world?” “Yes,” said Emily, Charlotte, and Anne together, rather more loudly than any of them expected.
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Children are natural practitioners of the Queer and the Questing, for childhood is nothing but a quest through a queer country. Of course, they often have a good deal of trouble with the Quiet.