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Quotes About Perspective

But did you ever ask her?" "Ask her what?" "If she wanted to come back." "Why the hell would I ask her? Nobody wants to be dead. I did the right thing. For us. For her. You were there. It was heroic. I was selfless. I was strong." "Were you? Or could you just … not accept that something pretty was taken from you? Did you know her? Or was she hot and rich and uncomplicated?
~ Catherynne M. Valente
I'm an extra in your story. Well, you're an extra in mine, boy.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
Is she happy? She doesn't understand. She has never considered it. It is possible to be so entirely happy you never ask the question. She is a full glass submerged in water. Neither nor both full and empty. The inquiry, though kind, has no meaning for her.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
They knew all about the war with France from Papa's magazines. But whenever they tried to imagine what a war was actually like, it unfolded in their heads like a cross between a chess game, a horse race, a country dance, and a very racy night at the theater.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
So my name is Scout. Yeah, my mom read To Kill a Mockingbird. Leave it to her to think 5th grade required reading is totally deep.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
CHYTERA: [...] May I... May I ask? You wear a wedding ring, but on the wrong hand. Indulge my curiosity? ERASMO: She didn't want to get married. Doesn't mean I wasn't her husband.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
But which one is right? The real gods? The truth?' I asked. Balthazar smiled gently, as if speaking to a very slow child. 'That is not for us to judge. Each of us believes what seems true enough to him, and allows others the same luxury. Who can know what happened in the dim dawn of the world? We can barely decide what to have for breakfast without a theological debate - the Nurian law is polite disagreement. We do our best with how the world appears to our own eyes.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
When one is travelling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it is brigther and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparasion to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
You can't blame a book for its story.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
Oh, please, do try to explain it to them. We'll be here for ninety years, and at the end of it they'll be quite certain you've told them that Mohammed is a turtle with an excellent singing voice. May you have better luck than I!
~ Catherynne M. Valente
It's not nihilism is there's really no point to anything.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
You have already heard the First General Fact: Life is beautiful and life is stupid. It goes on to add: You can only ever fix one of these at a time, and wouldn't it be nice if anyone could agree on which one is the bigger problem?
~ Catherynne M. Valente
You never feel so grown up as when you are eleven, and never so young and unsure as when you are forty. That
~ Catherynne M. Valente
Bran felt terribly sorry for his sisters, but it was hardly his fault that the world was so determined to make girls suffer a great deal more than boys. He hadn't built the world. It had nothing to do with him.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
What price the Red Wind paid for Hawthorn's postage he never saw. One can only know the weight and heft of the prices one pays onself. The costs borne by others are their own, secret and deep and long.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
They were all very young, really, too young for all they had seen, but too old not to have seen it.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
So I talk to the dead. They're the only ones who can see the whole story. All they've got is story.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
We Queerfolk are big-picture types. You have to be, to see how the Queerness of the World works itself through everything.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
You have to be able to see the world as a whole to bear it—to see the Queerness that moves in every bit
~ Catherynne M. Valente
A father is nowhere near as valuable as a spoon.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
I wouldn't even consider it if I were you. But then if I were you, I would not be me, and if I were not me, I would not be able to advise you, and if I were unable to advise you, you'd do as you like, so you might as well do as you like and have done with it.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
Am I truly such a villain? 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.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
There's no fun in arguing if you never get shown up. Who plays a game it there's no chance they'll lose? I do so crave to be proven wrong,. It is as sweet as proving yourself right, when done properly.
~ Catherynne M. Valente
I really don't know what you're talking about," said the Speaker of the United State House of Representatives. "We're doing great. Turn on any news channel, they'll tell you. Taxes are low, business is booming, crime is down, the Patriots win the Super Bowl every year, and we're finally getting our country back. I'll admit, it used to be a real nightmare around here.
~ Catherynne M. Valente