60 Quotes by Caitlín R. Kiernan

It's a myth that crazy people don't know they're crazy. Many of us are surely as capable of epiphany and introspection as anyone else, maybe more so. I suspect we spend far more time thinking about our thoughts than do sane people.

Dancy closes her eyes, remembering all the times that have been so much worse than this, all the horror and shame and sorrow to give her strength. The burning parts of her no one and nothing can ever touch, the fire where her soul used to be.

I am a dead woman. Dead and insane.

Time is the navigator, and we are only hitchhikers.

Stop it," Chance says out loud, angryraw, scornful voice that she hardly recognizes, "Jesus, just fucking stop it," but she's crying again, and her eyes burn, and she's so goddamn sick of the sound, the smell and saltbland flavor of her own useless tears.

Assassination is almost always unthinkable to moral, thinking men until after a holocaust has come and gone.

Writing makes it even harder than concrete. Writing makes it hard as diamond.

Making a story from the messy thoughts and half-thoughts in her head, building a world and lives and taking them apart again, fitting the pieces together another way until it feels right, as right as she can make it feel.

What makes us brave isn't lacking the good sense to be afraid; it's looking back at what we've lived through and seeing if we faced it well.