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War is not for winning, Masha, sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. It is for surviving.

Catherynne M. Valente

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Catherynne M. Valente
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: May 5
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Cat Valente
Reading
Surviving
War
Shoulder
Supply
Shoulders
Strategy
Track
Sighed
Lines
Strategies
Winning
Tracks

More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

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All things are strange which are worth knowing.
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Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.
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That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.
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Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts.
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And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.
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It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.
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... but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.
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You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.
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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
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I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.
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Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.
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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.
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Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s hard to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin.
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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.
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I am the Walker and the Maze.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Koschei, Koschei,” she whispered. “What would I have been if I had never seen the birds? I am no one I am nothing. I am a blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you.
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...her cry is a hook and it catches me in the throat.
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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.
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Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Marya pinned out her childhood like a butterfly. She considered it the way a mathematician considers an equation.
Catherynne M. Valente