896 Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

Who liked it hot and hated snow?The Fuckwits did! the Fuckwits did!Who ate up everything that grows?The Fuckwits did! the Fuckwits did!Who drowned the world in oceans blue?The Fuckwits did! the Fuckwits did!Who took the land from me and you?The Fuckwits did, we know it's true!Are you Fuckwits, children dear?We're GARBAGETOWNERS, free and clear!But who made the garbage, rich and rank?the Fuckwits did, and we give thanks.

Those were all big words, to be sure, 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.

I am a golem, child,’ answered Lye calmly. ‘My mistress wrote it there. She was marvelous clever and knew all kinds of secret things. One of the things she knew was how to gather up all the slips of soap the bath house patrons left behind and arrange them into a girl shape and write “truth” on her forehead and wake her up and give her a name and say to her: “Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.

Funny how "question" contains the word "quest" inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.

Welcome to the American sector! Feast your eyes on glorious Pluto, her wild frontier, her high standard of living, her rugged, hardworking citizens, her purple mountains majesty! Ride the mighty buffalo! Marvel at the bustling industry of the great cities of Jizo and Ascalaphus! Climb the peaks of Mt. Orcus and Mt. Chernobog!

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.

September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself. She could not quite have put it into words, but she felt profoundly, at the bottom of her new, shining heart, that she could find lost things. She could make them un-lost if she were brave enough. After all, if enough lost things band together, even in the darkest depths, they aren't really lost at all anymore.

The tyrannosaurus looked a little shamefaced - but only a little, for dinosaurs would rather drown in tar than admit they're wrong. That unfortunate attitude played a key role in their extinction.

Bosses run things. The rest of us get run. It's the only rank that matters these days. You can dress it up as baronies or boyars or caliphates, but that's just sticking lace and ribbons on the dinosaur and hoping he'll take you to town. Is you a boss or isn't you? That's about the size of it.