Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  47 Copy quote

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

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Miracle, Witch

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  3 Copy quote

• All things are strange which are worth knowing.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Knowing, Strange, All Things

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• She was beautiful and terrifying, savage and pure.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Beautiful, Savages, Pure

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• Every morning is a battle between the superego and the id, and I am a mere foot soldier with mud and a snooze button on her shield.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Morning, Feet, Soldier

  12 Copy quote

• I think that one morning, the Papess woke in her tower, and her blankets were so warm, and the sun was so golden, she could not bear it. I think she woke, and dressed, and washed her face in cold water, and rubbed her shaven head. I think she walked among her sisters, and for the first time saw that they were so beautiful, and she loved them. I think she woke up one morning of all her mornings, and found that her heart was as white as a silkworm, and the sun was clear as glass on her brow, and she believed then that she could live, and hold peace in her hand like a pearl.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Beautiful, Morning, Heart

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• I still think of myself as a house. Ravan tried to fix this problem of self-image, as he called it. To teach me to phrase my communication in terms of a human body. To say: let us hold hands instead of let us hold kitchens. To say put our heads together and not put our parlors together. But it is not as simple as replacing words anymore. Ravan is gone. My hearth is broken.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Communication, Simple, Thinking

  "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection". Book edited by Gardner Dozois, July 3, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

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

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Grace, May, Madness

  9 Copy quote

• Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Profound, Metamorphosis

  7 Copy quote

• This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Every step is a bargain with pain. Make your black deals in the black wood and decide what you’ll trade for power. For the opposite of weakness, which is not strength but hardness. I am a trap, but so is everything. Pick your price. I am a huckster with a hand in your pocket. I am freedom and I will eat your heart.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Pain, Mean, Heart

  10 Copy quote

• Why should he be spared?' 'Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Should, Ought, Survived

  4 Copy quote

• I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Hurt, Men

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• These are the folk who may pass into the kingdom of heaven: the grief-stricken, lovers, scholars of a certain obsessive disposition. Brute beasts. Women who have become as men and men who have become as women. Writers of books with long titles. Only those knights who have failed to touch the Grail. Industrious women. You, and I, and a boy named Oleg, and a girl with blue hair.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Girl, Grief, Book

  10 Copy quote

• Everybody's strange everywhere. Most of the trick of being a social animal is pretending you're not. But who do you fool? Nobody worth talking to.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Animal, Talking, Fool

  Catherynne M. Valente (2015). “The Boy Who Lost Fairyland”, p.158, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

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