896 Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

It’s a fairy tale. A children’s story. Not a funny or silly one, but one with blood and death and horror, because that’s fairy tales, too. A kid got swallowed by a whale. A little Pinocchio. A little Caliban. It’s all there. And, you know, in a fairy tale, the maidens are never dead – not really. They’re just sleeping.

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

But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If.

People who share a secret share a heart.

It’s the most marvelous and terrible thing in the world. Everyone, but everyone, is pretending to be someone else.

Do you think, if Columbus had stood on the bow of his ship, looked at the New World and understood everything to come, all the disease and death and betrayal, all the ugliness, all the blood – do you think he would have embraced it, called it paradise?

I look at you, Masha, and it is like drinking cold water. I look at you and it is like my throat being cut.

Shoes are funny beasts. You think they’re just clothes, but really, they’re alive. They want things. Fancy ones with gems want to go to balls, big boots want to go to work, slippers want to dance. Or sleep. Shoes make the path you’re on. Change your shoes, change your path.

Koschei the Deathless made a face as he tasted the wine. “It is far too sweet. Comrade Stalin fears bitterness and has the tastes of a spoiled princess. I savor bitterness – it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.