Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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Hounds and hearthstones, girl, haven't you ever heard a story about Koschei? He's only got the one. Act one, Scene one: pretty girl. Act one, Scene two: pretty girl gone!
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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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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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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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Autumn has a hungry heart - September is the beginning of death.
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Check your pockets, my chimney-child.
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It is not so easy to always remember who you are.
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A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.
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I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?
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Opium ain’t got nothing on the promise of tomorrow turning up better than today. Snow
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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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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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No one is a cup for another to drink from
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It takes energy for new roads to diverge in new woods, and no energy is spent with complete efficiency, without waste. Where wood has burned, there will be ash. The waste product of the constantly dividing multiverse is a fine, drifting mist of regret, and no wormhole has ever starved.
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Things that cannot long be kept secret: death in the family, the loss of a ring, corruption of the spirit, boredom, illicit love. Sickness. Addiction. Pregnancy.
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What was magical at two in the morning was tawdry and cheap and dangerous to your health at two in the afternoon.
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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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A basic moral imperative is in play here. If you can protect a child, you must.
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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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Most people don’t like complexity. They would prefer the world to be simple.
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Everything in the world is a boxing match in your heart, between Boldness and Not-Boldness. You let them holler inside you and wallop each other with Arguments For and Against. Then you end by betting on one or the other and that’s how things get decided.
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We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.
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A Bank is but a college of Fiscal Magic.