Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

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For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.

Catherynne M. Valente

Heart, Practice, Two

Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.517, Macmillan

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I am freedom and I will eat your heart

Catherynne M. Valente

Heart, Eat Your Heart

Catherynne M. Valente (2015). “Six-Gun Snow White”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.

Catherynne M. Valente

Miracle, Witch

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Bad luck relies on absolutely perfect timing.

Catherynne M. Valente

Perfect, Luck, Timing

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We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.

Catherynne M. Valente

Silly, Maps, Lines

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.17, Macmillan

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It is best in the end to let women see to their own vengeance.

Catherynne M. Valente

Vengeance, Ends

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If you want to kill yourself, do not use us as your knife.

Catherynne M. Valente

Knives, Use, Want

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.277, Macmillan

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Funny how "question" contains the word "quest" inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.

Catherynne M. Valente

Journey, Quests, Questions Asked

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She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death.

Catherynne M. Valente

Girl, Cat, Years

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.204, Macmillan

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All things are strange which are worth knowing.

Catherynne M. Valente

Knowing, Strange, All Things

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Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago.

Catherynne M. Valente

Strong, Heart, Long Ago

Catherynne M. Valente (2012). “The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There”, p.85, Macmillan

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Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like, the awful, wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Try to smell the hard, pale wood sending up sharp, green smoke into the afternoon. To feel the mellow, golden sun on your skin, more gentle and cozier and more golden than even the light of your favorite reading nook at the close of the day.

Catherynne M. Valente

Reading, Eye, Autumn

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.130, Macmillan

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At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, much more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn't converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food - for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them.

Catherynne M. Valente

Philosophy, Opposites, And Love

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Love rarely waits for permission.

Catherynne M. Valente

Waiting, Permission

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It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.

Catherynne M. Valente

Reading, Heart, Growth

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.4, Macmillan

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When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier.

Catherynne M. Valente

Travel, Looks, Brighter

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.50, Macmillan

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Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.

Catherynne M. Valente

Book, Stories, Way

Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.49, Macmillan

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She was beautiful and terrifying, savage and pure.

Catherynne M. Valente

Beautiful, Savages, Pure

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A library is never complete. That’s the joy of it. We are always seeking one more book to add to our collection.

Catherynne M. Valente

Book, Joy, Library

Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.459, Macmillan

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Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you're changing into a hundred other things, but you can't let go. You can only try to match up and never turn into a wolf while he's a rabbit, or a mouse while he's still busy being an owl, a brawny black bull while he's a little blue crab scuttling for shelter. It's harder than it sounds.

Catherynne M. Valente

Letting Go, Wrestling, Blue

Catherynne M. Valente (2013). “The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two”, p.167, Macmillan

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You will live as you live anywhere. With difficulty, and grief. Yes, you are dead. And I and my family and everyone, always, forever. All dead, like stones. But what does it matter? You still have to go to work in the morning. You still have to live.

Catherynne M. Valente

Morning, Grief, Forever

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.348, Macmillan

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It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it'll stick to. You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking.

Catherynne M. Valente

Running, Baby, Heart

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Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts.

Catherynne M. Valente

Profound, Metamorphosis

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...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.

Catherynne M. Valente

Grace, May, Madness

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But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt.

Catherynne M. Valente

Heart, Ice, Mouths

Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.49, Macmillan

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Born: May 5, 1979
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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