Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

141 Sourced Quotes

I wouldn't even consider it if I were you. But then if I were you, I would not be me, and if I were not me, I would not be able to advise you, and if I were unable to advise you, you'd do as you like, so you might as well do as you like and have done with it.

Catherynne M. Valente
It is best in the end to let women see to their own vengeance.

Catherynne M. Valente
No one is now what they were before the war. There's just no getting any of it back.

Catherynne M. Valente
Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

Catherynne M. Valente
He tried to reconstruct the story in his mind, but it kept getting confused, bleeding into itself like watercolors.

Catherynne M. Valente
The storm ate up September's cry of despair, delighted at its mischief, as all storms are.

Catherynne M. Valente
That's what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It's practically what they're for.

Catherynne M. Valente
It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.

Catherynne M. Valente
I wish you the best that can be hoped for, and no worse than can be expected.

Catherynne M. Valente
Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.

Catherynne M. Valente
Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.

Catherynne M. Valente
Oh, but Masha, can't you see? You are. An Ivan has come. That is like saying, Midnight has struck. It is time for bed, little one. You cannot have both. 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.

Catherynne M. Valente
The man who knelt before her would have sprung from her needles, even down the ghostly flecks of silver in his hair. She had not known before that she wanted all these things, that she preferred dark hair and a slightly cruel expression, that she wishes for tallness, or that a man kneeling might thrill her.

Catherynne M. Valente
Stories,' the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, 'are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.

Catherynne M. Valente
Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.

Catherynne M. Valente
I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.

Catherynne M. Valente
You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn't behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.

Catherynne M. Valente
When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can't make it run the other way again.

Catherynne M. Valente
Don't worry, Marya whispered, kissing his forehead. My old bones will follow yours soon enough.

Catherynne M. Valente
Maidens stand still, they are lovely statues and all admire them. Witches do not stand still. I was neither, but better that I err on the side of witchery, witchery that unlocks towers and empties ships.

Catherynne M. Valente
Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don't you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

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
The rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature- but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, Death can be kind.

Catherynne M. Valente
Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, and that her mother would still love her even though she hadn't waved goodbye. For one day her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn't been her father anymore, he had been a soldier, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.

Catherynne M. Valente
At the snowy summit of all these things, however, is the fact that you simply cannot go about locking your siblings in towers when they misbehave. It is unseemly and betrays a sad lack of creativity.

Catherynne M. Valente
I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried. For a year I have called every black tree Marya Morevna; I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.

Catherynne M. Valente
She felt as she often did in class when she was nearly sure she had the right answer, but could not always make herself raise her hand.

Catherynne M. Valente
For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it.

Catherynne M. Valente
It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?

Catherynne M. Valente
There is no such thing as a people who are all wicked or even all good. Everyone chooses. But even they, even they looked at people and saw only tools. No one is a cup for another to drink from.

Catherynne M. Valente