-
You are not the chosen one, September. Fairyland did not choose you – you chose yourself.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.
Catherynne M. Valente
-
They were all very young, really, too young for all they had seen, but too old not to have seen it.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Check your pockets, my chimney-child.
Catherynne M. Valente -
I perceive that you have a cruel heart, my child. It lies within your breast like a smoldering blade, hissing steam at me.
Catherynne M. Valente -
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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
You can’t kiss a girl into anything.
Catherynne M. Valente -
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.
Catherynne M. Valente
-
Everything is always happening all at once, in the present tense, forever, the beginning and the end and the denouement and the remaindering.
Catherynne M. Valente -
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.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Most folk have three faces - the face they get when they're children, the face they own when they're grown, and the face they've earned when they're old.
Catherynne M. Valente -
And the heart of Ivan Nikolayevich broke inside the body of Marya Morevna, and the pieces of him lodged deep in her bones, and through the window, the stars watched.
Catherynne M. Valente -
She's an old woman possessed of great powers - but aren't all old women possessed of great powers? Occupational hazard, I think.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Never give up your voice for a man, you fucking guppy.
Catherynne M. Valente
-
No one is a cup for another to drink from
Catherynne M. Valente -
Life is beautiful and life is stupid. This is, in fact, widely regarded as a universal rule not less inviolable than the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Uncertainty Principle, and No Post on Sundays.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Honesty is such a nasty habit, dear. Like biting your nails.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Your privilege is comprised of the questions you’ve never had to ask.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Punishment doesn't mean you aren't loved. On the contrary. You can only punish someone you love.
Catherynne M. Valente -
But I’ve brought you to the snow, and the snow is the beginning and the end of everything, everyone knows that.
Catherynne M. Valente
-
Things that begin and end in grief: marriage, harvest, childbirth. Journeys away from home. Journeys toward home. Surgeries. Love. Weeping.
Catherynne M. Valente -
Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.
Catherynne M. Valente -
It's a secret and if you tell a secret the secret comes alive and can never be kept safe at home again.
Catherynne M. Valente -
We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.
Catherynne M. Valente