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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
First
Students
Salt
Must
Knew
Birds
Things
Hours
Student
Life
Water
Length
World
Death
Hour
Night
Aware
Young
Bird
Firsts
Seven
Avid

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I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?
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When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier.
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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.
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Your past's a private matter, sweetheart. You just keep it locked up in xbox where it can't hurt anyone.
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All jobs are odd, or they would be games or naps or picnics.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
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Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s hard to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin.
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War is not for winning, Masha, sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. It is for surviving.
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There's more than one way between your world and ours. There's the changeling road, and there's the Ravishing, and there's those that Stumble through a gap in the hedgerows or a mushroom ring or a tornado or a wardrobe full of winter coats.
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Death stands behind every bride, every groom.
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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.
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You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.
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And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.
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We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.
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...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.
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Everybody's strange everywhere. Most of the trick of being a social animal is pretending you're not. But who do you fool? Nobody worth talking to.
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