Catherynne M Valente quotes: top famous quotes and sayings by Catherynne M Valente

Top Catherynne M Valente Quotes

Browse top 329 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Catherynne M Valente.

Favorite Catherynne M Valente Quotes

1. "My mother lived alone in the ruins of the great Library, which was called Compleat, and a very passionate and dashing Library indeed. Under the slightly blackened rafters and more than slightly caved-in walls, my mother lived and read and dreamed, allowing herself to grow closer and closer to Compleat, to notice more and more how fine and straight his shelves remained, despite great structural stress. That sort of moral fortitude is rare in this day and age. By and by, my siblings and I were born and romped on the balconies, raced up and down the splintered ladders, and pored over many encyclopedias and exciting novels. I know just everything about everything—so long as it beings with A through L." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

2. "Your past's a private matter, sweetheart. You just keep it locked up in xbox where it can't hurt anyone." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

3. "War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

4. "Where once September seemed merely and quietly odd, staring out the window during Mathematics lectures and reading big colorful books under her desk during Civics, now the other children sensed something wild and foreign about her." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

5. "Why should he be spared?''Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

6. "She leaned in, and kissed her Marid gently, sweetly. She tried to kiss him the way she'd always thought kisses would be. His lips tasted like the sea." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

7. "But I can see that you are in pain, and that is the province of monsters. You drag your mother's corpse with you—it leaves a great furrow in the earth. If it is important enough to very rudely interrupt a woman who already owns two fingers she did not have this morning just to exhume those old bones, I will listen to you instead. It matters nothing to me. Believe me, it will not go easier for you if you come to feel warmly towards me because you have unburdened your soul. We have all the nights the world has ever made ahead of us. Speak of the dead in the dark, boy, and I will take her body from you, if you want to be rid of it." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

8. "When she spoke, the words were rote, taught to her by her captors, dead and empty, and forced. But her voice was rough, like silk torn by sharp diamonds, and I believed, truly, that she wanted nothing more than to disappear into the Tower and never emerge again. "Please, Saint Sigrid, take me in from the storm and teach me to steer through darkness, for I am lost, and I cannot see the shore." I did not move for a long moment. Then, slowly, I reached out my hand to her and whispered, "Come, Lady, I will cut your hair for you." Her hand slipped into mine, hard and cool." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

9. "Here! ‘Not thread nor glue, not nails nor screws, will ever self and shadow wed.' Helpful, those poet-types. Perhaps this one: ‘Seek the grimy queen of dread machines, if you your errant shadow miss.' Now that's quite good! As a Prophetic Utterance, Third Class (Vague Hints and Mysterious Signs), you couldn't ask for better. It's downright plain-spoken!" ~ Catherynne M. Valente

10. "Autumn is the very soul of metamorphosis, a time when the world is poised at the door of winter - which is the door of death - but has not yet fallen. It is a world of contradictions: a time of harvest and plenty but also of cold and hardship. Here we dwell in the midst of life, but we know most keenly that all things must pass away and shrivel. Autumn turns the world from one thing into another. The year is seasoned and wise but not yet decrepit or senile." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

11. "After love, no one is what they were before." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

12. "We must not dwell on what we were in our salad days when soup days steam now upon the table!" ~ Catherynne M. Valente

13. "A voice saying that other word an alive thing must learn, that other word as necessary to living as taking in fuel and making of it movement, music, leaves, roots, dimetrodon spikes, dancing, libraries, children:Yes! Yes! Yes!" ~ Catherynne M. Valente

14. "The colours of the glass throw blue and green onto her wet cheeks. The sea wind picks up her hair violet electrics snap and sparkle between the strands." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

15. "She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

16. "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

17. "When you are born," the golem said softly, "your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk, and crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going, or else you'll never be brave again." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

18. "Lebedeva's eyes shone. "Masha, listen to me. Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

19. "Astolaine Bombast, catalogue woman, ordered up like a rare steak, 'plees make shore she is pritty and a whyt gurl if you have enny'.Well, she's pritty enough for homesteading but takes no ribbons at the fair. After three dead babies that fellow wanted his money back, pack her up in a box and ship her east to the wife factory." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

20. "Hello old friend," he greeted it, "how strange for us to meet again, like this, with the snow blowing so outside.""You know my...my wrench?""Of course I know it. It was not a wrench when we were last acquainted, but ones friends may change clothes and still one knows them." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

21. "En voi huijata. En voi tehdä mitään leikisti. Jopa nyt olen vielä vahva. Minut on alistettava. Aivan kuten merta, isoäitiäni, ei voi muuttaa, minuakaan ei voi muuttaa - minut voi vain valloittaa." Hänen hartiansa lysähtivät. "Mutta olisin mieluummin lempeä. Ja rakastettu. Ja olisin toivomatta mitään, koskaan." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

22. "How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don't leave me." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

23. "The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

24. "You know, in Fairyland-Above they said that the underworld was full of devils and dragons. But it isn't so at all! Folk are just folk, wherever you go, and it's only a nasty sort of person who thinks a body's a devil just because they come from another country and have different notions. It's wild and quick and bold down here, but I like wild things and quick things and bold things, too." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

25. "I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

26. "Most of them... most of us never figure it out. Bad dream, they think, or good one. Funny rash, never really goes away, but Doc says it's fine, nothing to worry about. Why dwell on it? But some people, they just can't let it go... Some people drink themselves out of school trying to find it again, trolling through bars where the shadows are so greasy they leave trails on the walls, just to find a way in, a way through. Some people forget too that you're supposed to stop sleeping, you're supposed to have a life in the sun." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

27. "Marya pinned out her childhood like a butterfly. She considered it the way a mathematician considers an equation." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

28. "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

29. "September could see it. She did not know what is was she saw. That is the disadvantage of being a heroine, rather than a narrator. She knew only that a red light glowed and went dark, glowed and went dark." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

30. "September did not want to feel for the Marquess. That's how villains get you, she knew. You feel badly for them, and next thing you know, you're tied to train tracks. But her wild, untried heart opened up another bloom inside her, a dark branch heavy with fruit." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

31. "The keeping of lists was for November an exercise kin to repeating of a rosary. She considered it neither obsessive nor compulsive, but a ritual, an essential ordering of the world into tall, thin jars containing perfect nouns. Enough nouns connected one to the other create a verb, and verbs had created everything, had skittered across the face of the void like pebbles across a frozen pond. She had not created a verb herself, but the cherry-wood cabinet in the hall contained book after book, jar after jar, vessel upon vessel, all brown as branches, and she had faith." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

32. "But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

33. "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

34. "Chyerti—that's us, demons and devils, small and big—are compulsive. We obsess. It's our nature. We turn on a track, around and around; we march in step; we act out the same tales, over and over, the same sets of motions, while time piles up like yarn under a wheel. We like patterns. They're comforting. Sometimes little things change—a car instead of a house, a girl not named Yelena. But it's no different, not really. Not ever." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

35. "Do you think I am a fool, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you never wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume?" ~ Catherynne M. Valente

36. "I have made calculations that would beggar your soul. What is it that villains always say at the end of stories? You and I are more alike than you think? Well," the Marquess took September's hand in hers and very gently kissed it. "We are. Oh, how alike we are! I feel very warmly towards you, and I only want to protect you, as I wish someone had protected me. Come, September, look out the window with me. It's not a difficult thing. A show of faith, let's call it." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

37. "I had some peculiar ideas about love. I'll tell you what I thought on the subject back then: it's about as much use as a barrel with no bottom. When I fed the pigs and two of them got to scrapping over an old soft onion, I thought: that's love. Love is eating. Love is a snarling pig snout and long tusks. Love is a dress like the sun. Love is the color of blood. Love is what grown folk do to each other because the law frowns on killing.I said I loved her back. I put my hand on the door and I said I loved her back and when I said it I thought of kissing her and also of shooting her through the eye." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

38. "Respect me. Be proud, and if you love me, a little afraid, because love so often looks like fear. We are alike. We are alike." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

39. "I wish for my child to have a mind as stark and wild as the winter, a spirit as clear and fine as my window, and a heart as red and open as my wounded hand." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

40. "Who," coughed Zvonok, "do you think broke your favorite teacup last fall? The one with the cherries on the handle?""I was careless, Comrade Zvonok. I left the window open and a storm blew through.""Incorrect! I broke it because you left me no cream and no dry biscuits, and when your old boots wore through, you burned them up for heat instead of giving them to me!""Hear, hear!" the table erupted in approval once more. "Well done, well done!""I'm surely very sorry--""So is your teacup." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

41. "Marya Morevna! Don't you know anything? Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!" ~ Catherynne M. Valente

42. "And the answer is: You are wrong. The Faeries are not gone. But they are no longer what they were. I watched it and did not help them, though I could have. I cheered. I cheered and I wept and I was glad. Perhaps I should not have been. Perhaps laughing at agony is a Fairy's game and I should not have moved my pieces on their board." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

43. "I have not been in Fairyland nearly long enough to start crying, September thought, then bit her tongue savagely." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

44. "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

45. "I expect everyone in Boston has something like that ring, which is why I am glad I have never been to Boston." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

46. "Quando alguém está a viajar, tudo parece mais luminoso e mais agradável, o que não significa que seja mais luminoso e mais agradável, significa apenas que o lar terno e aprazível sofre em comparação com lugares desconhecidos aprimorados, com tudo o que têm de melhor à mostra." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

47. "Thieves are not so bad, and killing wears all possible costumes. There is no death, no murder that is better than any other. If you can kill me, the manner hardly bears consideration. You want to kill your own father, and you think it will make your sleep easier for the next seventy years if you can say you did it honorably. But your honor is blackened by patricide, and no amount of high-sounding formalities will make it white again." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

48. "You'll forgive the flowery talk, won't you? Our family does so love to be told they are beautiful. Vanity is an old and venerable habit." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

49. "Recite the Periodic Table of Teatime, in correct order, with Elemental Symbols, please.'A-Through-L sat back on his handsome black haunches, shut his eyes, and said: 'Hot Tea (H), Herbal Tea (He), Lingonberry Scones (Li), Berry Jam (Be), Butter (B), Cream (C), Napoleons (N), Orange Marmalade (O), Frosting (F), Nettle Tea (Ne)..." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

50. "Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? 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. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning." ~ Catherynne M. Valente

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Only you know your circumstances, your energy level, the needs of your children, and the emotional demands of your other obligations. Be wise during intensive seasons of your life. Cherish your agency, and don't give it away casually. Don't compare yourself to others — nearly always this will make you despondent. Don't accept somebody else's interpretation of how you should be spending your time. Make the best decision you can and then evaluate it to see how it works."
Author: Chieko N. Okazaki

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