Quotes from Catherynne M. Valente

A girl who never smiles has such power—what men will do to turn up but one corner of her mouth! She already wears her red war-gown and her circlet of cinnabar poppies. They bring out the color in her grimace.

But you can't ever imagine what you're going to care about when you turn into the version of you that's waiting on the other side of five years from now. That's a stranger waiting to ambush you, and all you can do is plant your feet and try not to get thrown.

I am certainly intrepid and splendid and sordid and strong; I can see why you'd want me! But I'm afraid I've left the kettle on or whatever it is people say when they're bored.

How dare they speak so unkindly of stories? Stories never did anything to them! Stories are only here to love you and look after you and show you a good time… Stories don't even ask anything in return but not to have grape juice spilled on them, and, every once in a while, to be thought of fondly, years and years after you shut their covers.

what maiden knows how the world is skewed to spare any testing of her virtue?

Can you imagine there being so many people that you could just murder one and nobody would know who did it right away?

No one knows themselves very well. Who has the time these days? Have you been formally introduced to yourself? Made the effort to get to know your faults and your strengths, sit yourself down to tea and listen to all your troubles, answered the call when yourself falters? Then how can you say you know yourself in the least?

A prophetic world that can never come true.

You're better off—theatrical folk are nothing but a bundle of monologues and anxiety headaches.

Ettekö te... pelkää sutta?" kysyi Syyskuu, joka salaa uskoi voivansa hyvinkin päästä sellaisesta pelosta, jos susi rakastaisi häntä ja vartioisi häntä eikä sotkisi peittoja mutaan.

Iago shrugged his furry shoulders. "As you like. Saves me the work of picking the lock with my incisor.

Zelda was winter's best dame: pale and dark with a shimmer of Christmas in her eye, a flash of New Year's in her laugh.

Geography was fungible, fluid, unreliable.

You always trade blood for joy. It's always a deal struck in the wet and the dark. Al didn't make the rules. He just dances to the song that's playing.

Mira, he supposed, had always lived in her own head and allowed others to visit once in a while. With advance notice. And extensive decontamination protocols.

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.

But it is my experience that you learn everything in this world out of order. You only know what you needed to know after it's already done getting ruined all over you.

Lebedeva snapped her fingers. "It's like lying!" she exclaimed. "Well, we understand that, of course! The bigger the lie, the happier the liar.

And Miss Oleander Coy had herself a blue mouth. Little stains at the edges of her raspberry lips where she put her pen when she was thinking, which was always.

There are many sorts of lies. You could fill a shop with them. To be sure, lies are terribly common.

I was happy, the sun was high. I had enough.

She could be quite brave in the presence of a Wyverary, but tall and lovely ladies made her shy, even if they were made of soap.

Breakfast brought an oppressive gloom down upon my spirit. Soft-boiled eggs oozed a golden ichor of loneliness onto my spoon; the buttered rolls spoke only of the further torment of my being. Failure swirled in the milky depths of my tea and the bacon I devoured was the bacon of grief.

For a witch is nothing without her Spoon.