896 Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

True names,” said September wonderingly. “These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again but you still don’t come, and they call you by all your names together, and then, of course, you have to come, and right quick. Because true names have power, like Lye said. But I never told anyone my true name. The Green Wind told me not to. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I do now.

First Law of Heroics.” The Monaciello grinned up at a confused September. “Someone has to tell you it’s impossible, or the Quest can’t go on. Your friend has volunteered herself as a Non-Euclidean Companion, which is also necessary to proceed to the next stage.

A Bank is but a college of Fiscal Magic.

Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to okay people. Bad things happen to everyone.

We hold demonstrations and civil wars when inequities are discovered.

Will you beat me if I say no?" he whispered fearfully.September thought she might cry. "Oh...oh dear. Not all the world is like that. Well. I am not like that.

I’m not goddamned mermaid either, so don’t get any ideas about shell-bras or selling my voice to a sea-witch. That little idiot deserved to die. Never give up your voice for a man, you fucking guppy.

Of course, Storm-Lord! But why would a god marry a poor farm girl?" asked one of the bound novices, his voice thin and chirping as an insect."All things must eventually mate," I shrugged, "having been cast into a man's flesh I must do as flesh does. And it hardly matters whether one mates with a woman or a rock or a river - the end result is the same. Once all the world wed stones and trees - but this is a degenerate age, and no one keeps to tradition.

Time is communal, Marya Morevna, the most purely communal of all commodities. It belongs to us all equally.