Quotes from Catherynne M. Valente

Do you remember being born? Only a few can say they do and not be caught immediately in the lie, and most of them are wizards. I, of course, remember it perfectly. Certain benefits are granted to narrators as part of the hiring package, to compensate for our irregular hours and unsafe working conditions.

As you swallow the cow's tongue, think for a moment about how strange and holy that is, to devour the tongue of another. To steal from it all its power to speak, to low at the moon, to call to its calf. To be worthy of such food you must guard your own words carefully, speaking only the wise and clever ones, lest your tongue end up likewise, on the plate of a rich man.

I wanted to write about a postapocalyptic world where our civilization was not looked back on with awe and admiration, as it is in so many books of the genre, but disdained as the fuckwits we are, who wrecked a perfect biosphere because we couldn't be bothered not to.

We who were once living can guard you still, and love you, and keep you living safe and whole. Nothing ever truly dies.

The only question is this: Do you have enough empathy and yearning and desperation to connect to others outside yourself and scream into the void in four-part harmony?

But when it finally did happen, the alien invasion turned out to be much more like Mr. Looney of the Tunes than Mr. Ridley of the Scott. Point to Nani.

So it is written—but so, too, it is crossed out. You can write over it again. You can make notes in the margins. You can cut out the whole page. You can, and you must, edit and rewrite and reshape and pull out the wrong parts like bones and find just the thing and you can forever, forever, write more and more and more, thicker and longer and clearer. Living is a paragraph, constantly rewritten.

I shall not be afraid of anything I haven't even seen yet. If Fairyland-Below is a terrible place, well, I shall feel sorry for it. But it might be a wonderful place! Just because the wild striped cats don't know what diamonds are doesn't mean they're vicious; it just means they have wildcat sorts of wants and wealth and ways of thinking, and perhaps I could learn them and be a little wilder and cattier and stripier myself.

I eat, I perspire, I sleep, I excrete, I regret my choices, I yearn for the past. I have a very full schedule.

Even if you hadn't entirely deposed (and possibly killed) not one but two governments and destabilized all sorts of political regions you couldn't even pronounce, let alone draft up constitutional monarchies for, even if you'd been far more careful about leaving your toys strewn about everywhere when you tire yourself out with anarchy and run on home, I'd say you really are the lowest sort.

But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again--after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.

In my mind I know the name of an ocean the size of everything that was. My mouth can only call it death.

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!

But the Tsar of Death and the Tsar of Life greatly feared one another, for Death is surrounded by souls, and is never lonely, and the Tsar of Life had hidden his death away in a place deeper than secrets, and more secret than depth.

Is it really a cage if it's the size of the world?" "Yes," said Emily, Charlotte, and Anne together, rather more loudly than any of them expected.

We are a Body of contradiction, flesh-full and fleshless.

Did everything that had magic have teeth?

Your love is a terrible thing," November says. "It sits heavy. It stings. It cuts." She shrugs. "I am Casimira." "I don't know if I can bear it." "I would not have chosen you if you could not. You will get stronger. You will grow calluses.

She was determined that I hold this thing inside me like a heart—something irremovable and constant.

Folk dress in all manner of finery and wonderful hats to go and watch the races, but only if it's horses doing the barreling that day. This, at least, is understandable, for horses, in secret, love hats more than any other creature. It is a horse's tragedy that they can never properly wear one.

That a clever person is never bored, and a bored person is never clever.

Imagine having so much energy to spare after finding food and shelter and clothing and some tiny goddamn scrap of company that you figured you'd make a beautiful silver cup, not because some kid did the best job, but just because she tried the hardest. I tried the hardest all the time , and everyone's just permanently fucking mad at me. Imagine having that much left over that you give one single ghostly shit about the eight-best daffodil.

But you like him already, I can tell. Even though we showed our teeth and were very clear about his being wicked.

September frowned; she probably did need to hear things which were cruel but true. If they were true it did not matter if they were cruel, even if all her mistakes were laid out before her like rings in a jeweler's box.