Quote

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.

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
Would
Hurt
Machine
Seen
Hungry
Girl
Wrote
Wanted
Machines
Nothing
Loving
Needing
Made
Bird
Whispered
Kind
Paper
Blank
Never
Magic
Birds

More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

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You look like a winter night, he had told her when he had given it to her. I could sleep inside the cold of you.
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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Blue is for cruel bargains green is for daring what you oughtn’t violet is for brute force. I will say to you: Coral coaxes pink insists red compels. I will say to you: You are dear to me as attar of roses. Please do not get eaten.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.
Catherynne M. Valente
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Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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.
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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Love, I've never been anyone's mother I don't know how to talk to young or old. But don't stop smiling just because I flap my mouth and say something that's not dressed around the edges like a lace tablecloth. Thicken up and we'll get along fine.
Catherynne M. Valente
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It is such hard work to keep your heart hidden! And worse, by the time you find it easy, it will be harder still to show it. It is a terrible magic in this world to ask for exactly the thing you want. Not least because to know exactly the thing you want and look it in the eye is a long, long labor.
Catherynne M. Valente
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She did not want to read this book from start to finish, or rather, she thought perhaps it did not want her to. Instead she practiced the art of bibliomancy, trusting the book to show her what it wanted her to know.
Catherynne M. Valente
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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
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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.
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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Woman! Come out! I have— She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. I have come to rescue you, she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
Catherynne M. Valente
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That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory.
Catherynne M. Valente
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You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.
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
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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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.
Catherynne M. Valente