CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE QUOTES III

American author (1979- )

But a death is a death. It's a thing you can't get around. It just sits there like a fat arsehole in black pyjamas, eats all your food, drinks all your wine, and demands you call it mister for the privilege.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


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

Palimpsest


Reading while I'm writing is actually very important to me. If I'm not reading a novel, all I'm reading is the internet, and that's not good. What goes in comes out. You can't just put internet comments and Twitter feeds into your head and expect good writing to come out.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

interview, Electric Lit, December 1, 2015


Most novels, for me, start with a flicker of images, almost like a movie: a girl shivering in a garden, a map on a woman's skin, a long black car with chicken legs.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

interview, Rain Taxi, November 21, 2013


Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Deathless


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.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Deathless


I savor bitterness -- it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Deathless


It's occasionally refreshing to simply sit with someone who has known you a long while and still thinks you're worth a damn.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


I don't deal in unvarnished truths. It's the varnish that counts. That makes it true.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

The Fairyland Series


A story is a cup of really good coffee. A poem is a shot of espresso.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

interview, Rain Taxi, November 21, 2013


Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


That's what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It's practically what they're for.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making


There's nothing the rich don't skim off the top.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


You have no pride. If you have it, misplace it. Under your mattress, in someone else's cupboard. It'll do you no favours.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice


Secrets seem so important until there's no one left to spill them to.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Radiance


A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Deathless


This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Every step is a bargain with pain. Make your black deals in the black wood and decide what you'll trade for power. For the opposite of weakness, which is not strength but hardness. I am a trap, but so is everything. Pick your price. I am a huckster with a hand in your pocket. I am freedom and I will eat your heart.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Six-Gun Snow White


Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

Deathless