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Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. You'll never wish you'd held back a little more.
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
Tell
Littles
Back
Held
Little
Scared
Never
Fast
Silence
Wish
More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente
Someone ought to write a novel about me.
Catherynne M. Valente
The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do.
Catherynne M. Valente
When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
It's Latin, which is an excellent language for mischief-making, which is why governments are so fond of it.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
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
...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.
Catherynne M. Valente
Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
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
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
Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
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
You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.
Catherynne M. Valente