Catherynne M. Valente - Death Quotes

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Do you know, Masha, how revelation comes? Like death. So sudden, though you knew all along it must occur. A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.

Catherynne M. Valente
When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bright; it isn't like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.

Catherynne M. Valente
She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death.

Catherynne M. Valente
And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.

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
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
First, the avid student must be aware that when the world was young it knew only seven things: water, life and death, salt, night, birds and the length of an hour.

Catherynne M. Valente