896 Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

Oh, quit that. Blushing is for virgins and Christians.

Oh, September! It is so soon for you to lose your friends to good work and strange loves and high ambitions. The sadness of that is too grown-up for you. Like whiskey and voting, it is a dangerous and heady business, as heavy as years. If I could keep your little tribe together forever, I would. I do so want to be generous. But some stories sprout bright vines that tendril off beyond our sight, carrying the folk we love best with them, and if I knew how to accept that with grace, I would share the secret.

Love rarely waits for permission.

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.

You can never know how your clock runs. But it does run - and always faster than you think.

You will always go into that tent. You will see her scar and wonder where she got it. You will always be amazed at how one woman can have so much black hair. You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast. You will always run away with her. You will always lose her. You will always be a fool. You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear. You have already done all of this and will do it again.

I burn, I freeze; I am never warm. I am rigid; I forgot softness because it did not serve me.

Why should he be spared?' 'Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.

... I did not set out to be beloved and just, only strong." 'A King can be better than that," the Prince insisted. "And so we all begin, determined to better our fathers' performances, knowing we can change the very nature of humanity, make it better, cleaner. But then daggers strike in the night, and peasants revolt, and all manner of atrocities become a necessity as breakfast. Only Princes believe in the greater good. Kings know there is only Reign, and all things may be committed in its holy name...