Catherynne M. Valente Quotes About Heart

Quotes about: Heart

• 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

• 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

• You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Betrayal, Hate, Heart

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.283, Macmillan

• 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

• A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Book, Heart, Doors

  Catherynne M. Valente (2012). “The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There”, p.203, Macmillan

• She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, Stubborn, Want

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.282, Macmillan

• All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Sweet, Children, Reading

• Marya Morevna! Don't you know anything? Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Girl, Clever, Heart

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.41, Macmillan

• For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Teenage, Children, Heart

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.316, Macmillan

• 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

• This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, Causes, Trouble

  Catherynne M. Valente (2012). “The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There”, p.304, Macmillan

• Some girls have to go to college to discover what they are good at; some are born doing what they must without even truly knowing why. I felt a hole in my heart shaped like a dark door I needed to guard.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Girl, Heart, Dark

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.352, Macmillan

• Her heart ached as though a knife had quietly slipped between her ribs.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, Knives, Ribs

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.186, Macmillan

• 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

• I'm sure you've heard people talk about their Heart's Desire—well that's a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. They're big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon at folk who aren't worth the mooning. Bones are the ones that have to make the journey, fight the monster, kneel before whomever is big on kneeling these days. Bones do the work for the heart's grand plans. Bones know what you need. Hearts only know want.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Dream, Writing, Heart

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.402, Feiwel & Friends

• Her heart was bruised by the kiss, smashed and surprised and unsettled by it. September thought kisses were all nice, sweet things asked for gently and given gladly. It had happened so fast and sharp it had taken her breath. Perhaps she had done it wrong, somehow. She put the kiss away firmly to think about later. Instead, she smiled at him and pulled a carefree mask over her face.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Sweet, Nice, Taken

• Marya Morevna, we are better at this than you are. We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. Never have your folk delighted us more, been more like family. For a devil, hypocrisy is a parlour game, like charades. Such fun, and when the evening is done we shall be holding our bellies to keep from dying of laughter.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Laughter, Fun, Heart

• I perceive that you have a cruel heart, my child. It lies within your breast like a smoldering blade, hissing steam at me.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Children, Lying, Heart

• September did not want to feel for the Marquess. That’s how villains get you, she knew. You feel badly for them, and next thing you know, you’re tied to train tracks. But her wild, untried heart opened up another bloom inside her, a dark branch heavy with fruit.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Sympathy, Heart, Dark

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

• I hope, in years to come, I shall hold my heart up and it will be a pane of clear glass, through which I see all, but nothing is distorted.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, Glasses, Years

• You cannot escape where you come from, September. Some part of it remains inside you always, like the slender white heart in the center of the thickest onion.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, White, Onions

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.527, Macmillan

• You and I, being grown-up and having lost our hearts at least twice or thrice along the way, might shut our eyes and cry out: Not that way, child! But as we have said, September was Somewhat Heartless, and felt herself reasonably safe on that road. Children always do.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Children, Heart, Eye

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.26, Feiwel & Friends

• 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

• 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

• You're not in love if you keep your own heart bricked up behind your bones. You're only playing.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Heart, Bones, Behinds

  Catherynne M. Valente (2013). “The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two”, p.177, Feiwel & Friends

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