Quotes from Catherynne M. Valente

She was a vengeful goddess and her will was absolute.

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.

September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself.

The trouble was, September didn't know what sort of story she was in. Was it a merry one or a serious one? How ought she to act? If it was merry, she might dash after a Spoon and it would all be a grand adventure, with funny rhymes and somersaults and a grand party at the end with red lanterns. But if it was a serious tale, she might have to do something important, something involving with snow and arrows and enemies.

Americans all acted like they were trying to pretend they hadn't just chased a fistful of ecstasy with a noseful of coke to save themselves from a police officer only they could see.

It's a secret and if you tell a secret the secret comes alive and can never be kept safe at home again.

Truth is: I was always that kind of girl. Truth is: they don't make dresses any whiter than mine. Truth is: I am not Demeter's daughter. I am Heisenberg's ripe tomato I am Niels Bohr's piece on the side. In the winter I am a particle. In the summer I am a wave. And I didn't get to be queen of hell by letting folks off easy.

That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no.

Life's still stupid but we got free of story out here under the beeches and the Big Dipper. We had enough of it, of things happening one after another and no end in sight. Of reversals and falling in love and tragic flaws, and by God if I see another motif in my business I will shoot it dead.

Everyone has their invisible cloak of all things past.

She did not want Fairyland to be full of older girls who wanted to be stars.

It takes energy for new roads to diverge in new woods, and no energy is spent with complete efficiency, without waste. Where wood has burned, there will be ash. The waste product of the constantly dividing multiverse is a fine, drifting mist of regret, and no wormhole has ever starved.

Sibyl, what do you want?" "I want to live," the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. "I want to keep on living forever and watching heroes and fools and knights go up and down, into the world and out. I want to keep being myself and mind the work that minds me. Work is not always a hard thing that looms over your years. Sometimes, work is the gift of the world to the wanting.

She's got a man's nightshirt on and stockings with holes in them. Somebody else's tie, a gold and green chevroned number, hangs around her neck and just at this moment it looks like a king's mantle draped over her shoulders. Her hair's all loose, her lipstick and eyeliner gone a-roving. She's got a cigar in one hand and a jar full of gin in the other, and she's laughing, laughing like for once that damned chicken crossed the road for something really good.

I'm not afraid of you!' The wombat yelled. 'I saw you get stuck in the washing machine once. Round and round you went! Who's afraid of something that can't defeat a rinse cycle?

You can't trust just any old person who comes along with a hundred puffins and a pretty face!

Don't worry, my little lump of rock. Everybody gets a chance to choose. Or else where would irony come from?

I think I look a little like a pumpkin," whispered September, secretly delighted. "I'm all green and orange.

I would have run wild through a magical kingdom and never looked back. Talking animals? Yes. Witches and monsters? Yes. Dark queens? Absolutely. Give it right here. I would have said yes to all of it.

We make our worlds of stranger stuff: We choose people who do not annoy us, places of green or glass and steel that feel as alive and necessary as our brothers and sisters, houses in which everything has a place, rules such as Do Not Take Things That Aren't Yours Unless No One Is Looking and Good Things Happen to Good People and A Year Is 365 Days are agreed upon, even when they aren't true, perhaps especially so.

If there are spells, they have a right to weave.

That is what happens when a person lives alone for so long - no one else can change their ways.

Betsy waved her hands in the air as if to disperse an unpleasant perfume. "He's such a lot of bother. You're better off—theatrical folk are nothing but a bundle of monologues and anxiety headaches.

Be nice to Fairyland. She is old and tender of heart and when her feelings are hurt, she cries volcanoes.