What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists? Catherynne M. Valente More Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente More Quotes From Catherynne M. Valente When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. Catherynne M. Valente brighter looks travel Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you're changing into a hundred other things, but you can't let go. You can only try to match up and never turn into a wolf while he's a rabbit, or a mouse while he's still busy being an owl, a brawny black bull while he's a little blue crab scuttling for shelter. It's harder than it sounds. Catherynne M. Valente letting-go blue wrestling You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast. Catherynne M. Valente i-love-you falling-in-love cutting I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone, you do not make them tell war stories. A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead. Catherynne M. Valente when-you-love-someone space war She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death. Catherynne M. Valente cat girl years But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt. Catherynne M. Valente ice mouths heart You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you. Catherynne M. Valente betrayal hate heart The world is not made of countries and outsiders. We are all just humans, and most of us fools and all of us longing for more than we have, to know more than we know--and yet even that is not enough, for if we knew everything we would only be disappointed that there was not one more secret to uncover. Catherynne M. Valente secret country world Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in it's changing and change with it. Catherynne M. Valente regret color home A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world. Catherynne M. Valente heart doors book It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to... immigrate, you could say. Catherynne M. Valente want tea country Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it. Catherynne M. Valente stories It is such hard work to keep your heart hidden! And worse, by the time you find it easy, it will be harder still to show it. It is a terrible magic in this world to ask for exactly the thing you want. Not least because to know exactly the thing you want and look it in the eye is a long, long labor. Catherynne M. Valente hard-work eye heart I think that one morning, the Papess woke in her tower, and her blankets were so warm, and the sun was so golden, she could not bear it. I think she woke, and dressed, and washed her face in cold water, and rubbed her shaven head. I think she walked among her sisters, and for the first time saw that they were so beautiful, and she loved them. I think she woke up one morning of all her mornings, and found that her heart was as white as a silkworm, and the sun was clear as glass on her brow, and she believed then that she could live, and hold peace in her hand like a pearl. Catherynne M. Valente heart morning beautiful Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a maiden in a tower—" At this the Witch spat, again rolling her marvelous eyes. "Those revolting creatures are always getting themselves locked up. If only they would stay that way. Catherynne M. Valente mistress rolling eye You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality. Catherynne M. Valente four should reality I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried. For a year I have called every black tree Marya Morevna; I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold. Catherynne M. Valente dark loss years Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut. Catherynne M. Valente real prayer children I still think of myself as a house. Ravan tried to fix this problem of self-image, as he called it. To teach me to phrase my communication in terms of a human body. To say: let us hold hands instead of let us hold kitchens. To say put our heads together and not put our parlors together. But it is not as simple as replacing words anymore. Ravan is gone. My hearth is broken. Catherynne M. Valente communication simple thinking I am a Prince," he replied, being rather dense. "It is the function of a Prince—value A—to kill monsters—value B—for the purpose of establishing order—value C—and maintaining a steady supply of maidens—value D. If one inserts the derivative of value A (Prince) into the equation y equals BC plus CD squared, and sets it equal to zero, giving the apex of the parabola, namely, the point of intersection between A (Prince) and B (Monster), one determines value E—a stable kingdom. It is all very complicated, and if you have a chart handy I can graph it for you. Catherynne M. Valente cds zero order
