Catherynne M. Valente Quotes
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Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.
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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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I perceive that you have a cruel heart, my child. It lies within your breast like a smoldering blade, hissing steam at me.
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[...] everything has a narrative, really, and if you can’t understand a story and relate to it, figure out how you fit inside it, you’re not really alive at all.
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I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.
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It's a secret and if you tell a secret the secret comes alive and can never be kept safe at home again.
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Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.
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I’ve always found chess to be a bit too much like real life to provide much enjoyment as a game.
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I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.
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For all that they love to make kings, John’s folk seem to have little interest in the actual business of ruling anything. They like to become, they do not like to be.
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That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.
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You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.
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When you’ve lost your girl, it doesn’t much matter where you live. Everywhere is just The Place She Isn’t, and that’s the front and back of it.
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The kind of smile that has kept a froggy, dark sort of surprise in its back pocket, and won’t spoil it too soon.
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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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“Is it really a cage if it’s the size of the world?” “Yes,” said Emily, Charlotte, and Anne together, rather more loudly than any of them expected.
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Eternity takes forever.
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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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You see her as you see anyone in this world: distorted, warped, reflected, refracted, contorted, mutilated by time.
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I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.
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The thing I hate about being dead is you can’t move on. I was in love with him when I died, so I’ll be in love with him till the sun burns out.
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So much light, sweet girl, begins in the dark.
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Remember, pain is not a test. Knowledge is not enough.
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In war you must always choose sides. One or the other. Silver or black. Human or demon. If you try to be a bridge laid down between them, they will tear you in half.