896 Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

Did I not come to you on my knees with a kingdom in my hand?

There is no better teacher of rough necessity than bad luck, and you will have great use of me, I promise.

Check your pockets, my chimney-child.

Surely you didn't think deathless meant dickless.

Koschei, Koschei,” she whispered. “What would I have been if I had never seen the birds? I am no one; I am nothing. I am a blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you.

The man who knelt before her would have sprung from her needles, even down the ghostly flecks of silver in his hair. She had not known before that she wanted all these things, that she preferred dark hair and a slightly cruel expression, that she wishes for tallness, or that a man kneeling might thrill her.

How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it.

Yes," he growled, "yes, I will put you there and turn out the light in your eyes and come to stare at you for centuries, to pore over you, because you are mine, my treasure, my hoard, and I cannot keep you and I cannot let you go.

But you like him already, I can tell. Even though we showed our teeth and were very clear about his being wicked.