When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can't make it run the other way again. Catherynne M. Valente More Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente More Quotes From Catherynne M. Valente We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly. Catherynne M. Valente mapslinessilly Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb. Catherynne M. Valente temptationlaughingthinking The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on the hill, and drink vodka, and wear black furs, and slurp borscht by the pail, like blood. Children may wear through their socks marching in righteous parades, but Papa never misses his wine with supper. Therefore, it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one’s stomach than of one’s nation. Catherynne M. Valente winestrongchildren To touch a person...to sleep with a person...is to become a pioneer," she whispered then, "a frontiersman at the edge of their private world, the strange, incomprehensible world of their interior, filled with customs you could never imitate, a language which sounds like your own but is really totally foreign, knowable only to them. Catherynne M. Valente pioneerssoundsleep She who invented words, and yet does not speak; she who brings dreams and visions, yet does not sleep; she who swallows the storm, yet knows nothing of rain or wind. I speak for her; I am her own. Catherynne M. Valente dreamrainsleep The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off. Catherynne M. Valente worstdarkworld Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago. Catherynne M. Valente long-agostrongheart The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do. Catherynne M. Valente smellsafethinking For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it. Catherynne M. Valente teenageheartchildren But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight. Catherynne M. Valente bravecleversleep I will never be without information,' she determined. 'I will do better than my sisters. If a bird or any other beast comes out of that uncanny republic where husbands are grown, I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.' For this is how Marya Morevna surmised that love was shaped: an agreement, a treaty between two nations that one could either sign or not as they pleased. Catherynne M. Valente two-nationsfalling-in-lovehusband I don’t want to be a Princess,” she said finally. “You can’t make me be one.” She knew very well what became of Princesses, as Princesses often get books written about them. Either terrible things happened to them, such as kidnappings and curses and pricking fingers and getting poisoned and locked up in towers, or else they just waited around till the Prince finished with the story and got around to marrying her. Either way, September wanted nothing to do with Princessing. Catherynne M. Valente princesswantbook She felt as she often did in class when she was nearly sure she had the right answer, but could not always make herself raise her hand. Catherynne M. Valente answersclasshands Some girls have to go to college to discover what they are good at; some are born doing what they must without even truly knowing why. I felt a hole in my heart shaped like a dark door I needed to guard. Catherynne M. Valente girldarkheart Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning. Catherynne M. Valente grievinglongchildren You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece. Catherynne M. Valente niecegrandfatherway September knew a number of curse words, most of which she heard the girls at school saying in the bathrooms, in hushed voices, as if the words could make things happen just by being spoken, as if they were fairy words, and had to be handled just so. Catherynne M. Valente voicegirlschool I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough. Catherynne M. Valente mothertwoson We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about. Catherynne M. Valente girlfriendgirlwriting All things are strange which are worth knowing. Catherynne M. Valente strangeknowingall-things
