Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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I believe we have an utterly unique specimen on our hands: a child who listens.
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All tamed things are made a bit ridiculous in the process, you know.
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You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking.
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...the beginning is where the end gets born.
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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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"Remember this when you are queen," she breathed. "I told you my secrets."
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You have to have the right sort of stone. Peridot for mothers, girasol for lovers, sapphire for sadness, and garnet for joy.
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The war is always going badly.
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She must have cried for some secret amphibian reason. Then her dress caught on fire while they danced, and there was a mess, but that's neither here nor there.
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The great blessing and great cruelty of youth is that there seems to be time enough.
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Rules are for those who can't think of a better way.
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In the beginning there was Dust, and in the end there will be Dust, and in the middle there is Dust, Dust, Dust!
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The Marsh King raised himself up and ushered me out the door with the air of a host who has just realized he is one guest away from a comfortable nap.
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He'll burn you down like wax if you let him. You'll think it's love, while he dines on your heart. And maybe it will be. But he's so hungry, he'll eat you all in one sitting, and you'll be in his belly, and what will you do then?
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Luck is a finite and rare substance in the universe, like palladium or cobalt. To use it, you have to take it from somebody else.
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Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.
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No one is a cup for another to drink from
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I do not want to muddle about with Politicks, and whenever two Folk of any sort are in a room together there are always Politicks to be muddled in.
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Can you imagine what it would do to a person, to know that they were standing between three people and that marrow-deep, desperate need?
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What is a map, but a thing that gets you where you're going? -Mr. Map
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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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Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.
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You’re not in love if you keep your own heart bricked up behind your bones. You’re only playing.
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Do you know, Masha, how revelation comes? Like death. So sudden, though you knew all along it must occur. A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.