Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
-
No one’s good just from being born any place
-
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.
-
Greta, Greta, he whispered, eyes shut in rapture, on thy breast I write my Edda, at thy feet I lay the keys of Niflheim, by thy leave alone, I live, and breathe, and die.
-
We think . . . that girls ought to sing. They ought to sing, and dance while they're singing. But we are not girls, and so can be almost certain that we know nothing about the matter.
-
Horses, in secret, love hats more than any other creature. It is a horse’s tragedy that they can never properly wear one.
-
Flowers are always more serious than they appear.
-
I’m quite civilized, I promise,’ Manythanks sniffed, smiling. ‘Wairwulves are cultured. We have choirs and charity races and rotary clubs. It’s when we’re human that you must take care.
-
All things built with tax money are beautiful: so we must think or go mad.
-
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.
-
“I can never remember my dreams," said the shadow of the Marquess quietly. "You must have had rich, tasty ones then. When you can't remember a dream, it's because a Baku ate it.
-
...her cry is a hook and it catches me in the throat.
-
Are you the only human in the world then? And all of the rest of us monsters?
-
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.
-
Cocky don't say anything and that's as good as love right about now.
-
The Land of Parents is strange and full of peril.
-
The Green Wind frowned into his brambly beard. “All little girls are terrible,” he admitted finally, “but the Marquess, at least, has a very fine hat."
-
So I talk to the dead. They're the only ones who can see the whole story. All they've got is story.
-
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.
-
There's no fun in arguing if you never get shown up. Who plays a game it there's no chance they'll lose? I do so crave to be proven wrong,. It is as sweet as proving yourself right, when done properly.
-
Everything living has a mouth. Mouths bite and swallow; they talk; they taste. They kiss. A mouth is the main tool for living.
-
I believe we have an utterly unique specimen on our hands: a child who listens.
-
But love is love, and love is compulsion. I must, and I do.
-
Any story told is a lie cunningly told to hide the real world from the poor bastards who live in it.
-
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.