Quotes from Catherynne M. Valente

You will live as you live in any world...With difficulty, and grief.

Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.

Death hath no dominion.

I ate all of my husbands. First I ate their love, then their will, then their despair, and then I made pies of their bodies - and those bodies were so dear to me!

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.

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.

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.

You were so near death that ghosts crowded around you, weeping silver tears, waiting for you with such smiles. You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.

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.

Anything is a poem if you say it often enough.

Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.

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.

I perceive that you have a cruel heart, my child. It lies within your breast like a smoldering blade, hissing steam at me.

I'll put this in words you can understand: humans are hideous, pain-guzzling, pollution-spouting space monsters who might threaten our way of life. Now, how does that usually pan out in the movies, kitten? At least we let you try to convince us we're wrong. I doubt you asked the dodo birds what they thought about it before you blasted the last one in the face with a blunderbuss.

Morality is more dependent on the state of one's stomach than of one's nation.

So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.

Endings are rubbish. No such thing. Never has been, never will be. There is only the place where you choose to stop talking. Everything else goes on forever.

Family is a transitive property.

Every person draws a map that shows themselves at the center. But that does not mean that no other countries exist.

I will age for you, if it pleases you. I will match you, wrinkle for wrinkle, grey hair for grey hair, crease for crease, wrinkle for wrinkle. You will be so beautiful when you are old.

This is my heart—carry it with you. I will dream of you in the dark, and you will taste it in my tea, and feel it in my shoes.

What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.

Breaking things heals a great many hurts. This is why children do it so often.

You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.