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First, the avid student must be aware that when the world was young it knew only seven things: water, life and death, salt, night, birds and the length of an hour.
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
Young
Bird
Firsts
Seven
Avid
First
Students
Salt
Must
Knew
Birds
Things
Hours
Student
Life
Water
Length
World
Death
Hour
Night
Aware
More quotes by Catherynne M. Valente
You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.
Catherynne M. Valente
When I saw him I thought I could curl up inside him and go to sleep and never wake up. Men are no good for that, Masha. They'll always want you working, when you're not softening their fall into bed at the end of the day.
Catherynne M. Valente
...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.
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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
One can never be sure,” the Green Wind sighed. “There is always the danger of kisses where sleeping maids are concerned. But you are safe now, and for awhile yet, and why worry about a thing that may never come to pass? Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.
Catherynne M. Valente
Never trust anyone under one hundred!
Catherynne M. Valente
Remember this when you are queen,” he whispered hoarsely. “I moved the earth and the water for you.
Catherynne M. Valente
Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
... relationships required such vigilance, such attention. You had to hold them together by force of will, and other people took up so much space, demanded so much time. It was exhausting.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.
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
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
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.
Catherynne M. Valente
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
A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.
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
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
I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.
Catherynne M. Valente