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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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Catherynne M. Valente
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: May 5
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Cat Valente
Death
Wildness
Become
Snake
Anything
Wolf
Years
Snakes
Like
Slowly
Cat
Knew
Girlhood
Girl
Wrung
More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente
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
Husbands lie, Masha. I should know I've eaten my share. That's lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self.
Catherynne M. Valente
And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.
Catherynne M. Valente
She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.
Catherynne M. Valente
Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.
Catherynne M. Valente
Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
Catherynne M. Valente
... 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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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.
Catherynne M. Valente
I burn, I freeze I am never warm. I am rigid I forgot softness because it did not serve me.
Catherynne M. Valente
Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
The future is a messy, motley business, little girl.
Catherynne M. Valente
Marya pinned out her childhood like a butterfly. She considered it the way a mathematician considers an equation.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
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
Death hath no dominion.
Catherynne M. Valente
We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.
Catherynne M. Valente
It's Latin, which is an excellent language for mischief-making, which is why governments are so fond of it.
Catherynne M. Valente