Quotes from Catherynne M. Valente

Slowly, without taking his eyes from hers, the man in the black coat knelt before her. "I have come for the girl in the window," he said, and his eyes filled with tears

If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life.

Every morning is a battle between the superego and the id, and I am a mere foot soldier with mud and a snooze button on her shield.

Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears.

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.

No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.

Just about every science whiz can tell you how he or she took apart the TV or the radio when they were kids just to see how it worked. To see what the world was made of. Well, when I was a kid, I took apart fairy tales to see how they worked. To see what the world was made of.

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.

You can't have whatever you want. But to a child who must ask permission for every single thing, adulthood looks like a constant parade of every desire's satisfaction. It is a heady and terrifying place. It is the Otherworld. It is Fairyland. In fantasy, we make this literal.

Everyone has a right to cry uncle on a genre every once in awhile. I've done it myself. Sometimes you just can't bear another gear or pair of wings or vampire teeth. You go on a fast, and sometimes you come back, and sometimes you don't.

Fantasy is my heart and love. And I just want to play in that garden for the rest of my life.

I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don't read it for legal reasons, but I'm thrilled to know it's there. Someone cared. Someone loved it enough to spend their free time writing about it for free.

Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears and are thus inherently incredibly interesting and powerful.

Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.

For most of us, fanfiction is a non-issue. Even for midlist writers. We will never be popular enough for people to play in our worlds with any frequency. The problem for us is getting people to read and care about our books that much in the first place.

I'm very touchy feely with my fandom, in part because they've never done me wrong or hurt me in any way. This is an awesome balance. I hope it stays that way forever.

When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier.

Never trust anyone under one hundred!

Truly, Autumn is my season," the scarlet beast chorted. "Spring and Summer and Winter all begin with such late letters! But Autumn and Fall, I have loved best, because they are best to love.

You're not in love if you keep your own heart bricked up behind your bones. You're only playing.

After love, no one is what they were before.

Love rarely waits for permission.

She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.

A girl in want of a Leopard still has feet.