Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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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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Things that begin and end in grief: marriage, harvest, childbirth. Journeys away from home. Journeys toward home. Surgeries. Love. Weeping.
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What is a map, but a thing that gets you where you're going? -Mr. Map
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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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Horses, in secret, love hats more than any other creature. It is a horse’s tragedy that they can never properly wear one.
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We who were once living can guard you still, and love you, and keep you living safe and whole. Nothing ever truly dies.
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Love is the Turing test, [...] It is how we check for life.
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Histories are instruments of oppression.
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No one is a cup for another to drink from
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Never assume that a woman is wicked simply because she is ugly and behaves unfavorably towards you. It is unbecoming behavior for a Prince.
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Woman! Come out! I have - " She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
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The bears, over the years, have developed a primitive but heartfelt Buddhist discipline. Beneath the cinnamon trees they practice the repetition of the Growling Sutra.
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It is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one's stomach than of one's nation
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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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A body can only deliver up the truth its bones know, Its blood, which is its history.
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A girl in want of a Leopard still has feet.
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Forests have secrets,' he said gently. 'It's practically what they're for. To hide things. To separate one world from another.
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Things I Will Try to Say More Often: Why? I love you. I’m sorry. May I have chocolate? Yes. yes. yes.
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I've always had enough, even if my enough and your enough are as different as an elephant and a minaret.
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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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She did not want to read this book from start to finish, or rather, she thought perhaps it did not want her to. Instead she practiced the art of bibliomancy, trusting the book to show her what it wanted her to know.
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We’ve made too many movies, you and I. Or too few. Always too few. Too many to have any meaning, too few to say what we meant.
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I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.
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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.