Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like, the awful, wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Try to smell the hard, pale wood sending up sharp, green smoke into the afternoon. To feel the mellow, golden sun on your skin, more gentle and cozier and more golden than even the light of your favorite reading nook at the close of the day.

When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.

Why do you need that thing? September asked. None of the airports back home have them.They do. You just cant see them right, Betsy Basilstalk said with a grin. All customs agents have them, otherwise, why would people agree to stand in line and be peered at and inspected? 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. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, thats all. Whereas Rupert here? Hes as honest as they come. Does what it says on the box.

Welcome to the American sector! Feast your eyes on glorious Pluto, her wild frontier, her high standard of living, her rugged, hardworking citizens, her purple mountains majesty! Ride the mighty buffalo! Marvel at the bustling industry of the great cities of Jizo and Ascalaphus! Climb the peaks of Mt. Orcus and Mt. Chernobog!

Finally, she said: “I’m lonely” — it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old wounds come open and suddenly you’re confessing to a wolf who never says anything back. She said: “I’m lonely,” and they ate her in the street.

Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.

What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.

Im sure youve heard people talk about their Hearts Desire—well thats a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. Theyre big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon at folk who arent worth the mooning. Bones are the ones that have to make the journey, fight the monster, kneel before whomever is big on kneeling these days. Bones do the work for the hearts grand plans. Bones know what you need. Hearts only know want.

It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.

September felt panic burn through her like gasoline. Why couldnt he understand her? But I didnt [choose]! I have hardly had a chance to breathe since I got here and its always like that in Fairyland. Everything is always happening and all at once. And I am growing up, Saturday! I am growing up and I have read books, so many books, and I know that growing up means you cant keep going to Fairyland the way you did when you were a child! Something happens to you and suddenly you have to keep a straight face and a straight line and I am afraid! I want something grand and I dont want to know what it is before it happens!

Fate is a woman, I said to them. In fact, she is three women. Young, like us, so that they will have the courage to be cruel, having no weight of memory to teach temperance. Young, but so old, older than any stone. Their hair is silver, but full and long. Their eyes are black. But when they are at their work they become dogs, wolves, for they are hounds of death, and also hounds of joy. They take the strands of life in their jaws, and sometimes they are careful with their jagged teeth, and sometimes they are not. They gallop around a great monolith, the stone that pierces our Sphere where the meridians meet, that turns the Earth and pins it in place in the world. It is called the Spindle of Necessity, and all round it the wolves of fate run, and run, and run, and the patterns of their winding are the patterns of the world. Nothing can occur without them, but they take no sides. I could also say that there is such a stone, such a place, but the dogs who are women died long ago, and left the strands to fall, and we have been helpless ever since. That in a wolfless world we must find our own way. That is more comforting to me. I want my own way, I want to falter; I want to fail, and I want to be redeemed. All these things I want to spool out from the spindle that is me, not the spindle of the world. But I have heard both tales.

Anything is a poem if you say it often enough.

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.

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.

I am a golem, child,’ answered Lye calmly. ‘My mistress wrote it there. She was marvelous clever and knew all kinds of secret things. One of the things she knew was how to gather up all the slips of soap the bath house patrons left behind and arrange them into a girl shape and write “truth” on her forehead and wake her up and give her a name and say to her: “Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.

But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs.

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 ones stomach than of ones nation

Just tell yourself a story thatll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

...the villagers had decided that practical meant extremely magical and full of interesting objects and had officially subtitled themselves, Winesap: A Pracktical Towne.

I abandoned her. Its the one capital crime of fatherhood. Mothers can fail a thousand different ways. A fathers only job is: do not abandon this child.