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No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.

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
Like
Skins
Whose
Safe
Name
Seen
Names
Nightmares
Without
Nightmare
Nothing
Skin

More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

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How much better if life were more like books, if life lied a little more, and gave up its stubborn and boring adherence to the way things can be, and thought a little more imaginatively about the way things might be.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a maiden in a tower— At this the Witch spat, again rolling her marvelous eyes. Those revolting creatures are always getting themselves locked up. If only they would stay that way.
Catherynne M. Valente
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It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
Catherynne M. Valente
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The future is a messy, motley business, little girl.
Catherynne M. Valente
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I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone, you do not make them tell war stories. A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead.
Catherynne M. Valente
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All jobs are odd, or they would be games or naps or picnics.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Death stands behind every bride, every groom.
Catherynne M. Valente
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However wretched her origins, she chose freely to continue her crimes against us from the moment she woke to this life. It is easy to forgive beautiful women, especially when they lay a sorrowful tale before you like a sugar-dusted meal. It does not mean they deserve forgiveness.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.
Catherynne M. Valente
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It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to... immigrate, you could say.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Astolaine Bombast, catalogue woman, ordered up like a rare steak, 'plees make shore she is pritty and a whyt gurl if you have enny'.Well, she's pritty enough for homesteading but takes no ribbons at the fair. After three dead babies that fellow wanted his money back, pack her up in a box and ship her east to the wife factory.
Catherynne M. Valente
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I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?
Catherynne M. Valente
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We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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After love, no one is what they were before.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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
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We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.
Catherynne M. Valente