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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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears.
Catherynne M. Valente
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No one belongs when they are new to this world. All children are Changelings.
Catherynne M. Valente -
The storm ate up September’s cry of despair, delighted at its mischief, as all storms are.
Catherynne M. Valente -
God is a random event, a nexus of pain and pleasure and making and breaking.
Catherynne M. Valente -
The world had gotten gritty enough. The only thing left to do in all that dirt was to shine.
Catherynne M. Valente -
And indeed, as night drew on the sky like a bodice, lacing it with the last beams of sunlight
Catherynne M. Valente -
She'd thought she left feeling helpless behind long ago - only we never leave helpless behind. It is a country in which we all hold passports.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Remember, pain is not a test. Knowledge is not enough.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Lebedeva snapped her fingers. “It’s like lying!” she exclaimed. “Well, we understand that, of course! The bigger the lie, the happier the liar.”
Catherynne M. Valente -
In my experience, folk find it nigh on impossible to call a thing what it is.
Catherynne M. Valente -
He does everything a Marshal does but twice as hard, twice as dirty, and without the soft and cushioning arms of the government to wipe his tears.
Catherynne M. Valente -
What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Where there's a labyrinth, there's a minotaur, and vice versa! I can't imagine a decent maze that would be caught dead without a minotaur.
Catherynne M. Valente -
That's just the first part. What others call you, you become. It's a terrible magic that everyone can do - so do it. Call yourself what you wish to become.
Catherynne M. Valente -
You couldn't ever really fix a sad story. You could only make another. And another. And another, until you found the right one at last, the one that ends in joy.
Catherynne M. Valente -
People are mostly happiest when they think they're just about to get the thing they want most. Before and after, they're all monsters.
Catherynne M. Valente -
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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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You can't trust just any old person who comes along with a hundred puffins and a pretty face!
Catherynne M. Valente -
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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
All things built with tax money are beautiful: so we must think or go mad.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Are you the only human in the world then? And all of the rest of us monsters?
Catherynne M. Valente