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