Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

About Catherynne M. Valente:

Catherynne M. Valente is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Andre Norton, and Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the World Fantasy Award–winning anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous Year's Best volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the International Journal of the Humanities under the name Bethany L. Thomas as well as in numerous essay collections.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In a very real way, television is the new mythos. It defines the world, reinterprets it. The seasons do not change because Persephone goes underground. They change because new episodes air, because sweeps week demands conflagrations and ritual deaths...

Catherynne M. Valente

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

Catherynne M. Valente

All things are strange which are worth knowing.

Catherynne M. Valente

This maze is laid out such that should you step through the correct path, by its end you will have learned the most extraordinary dance, such that any coronation would be proud to see you at the height of its feast, such that any holy dervish would w...

Catherynne M. Valente

Did you never wonder why the old books are so full of dragons chasing after maidens? The serpents think the girls are orphans, and long to get them away in a lair so that they may grow up strong and tall.

Catherynne M. Valente

A dragon looks like a girl when it is young.

Catherynne M. Valente

I see you go bare-shod. This is most likely extremely sensible. Shoes are no end of trouble for girls. . . . How many have danced to death in slippers of silk and glass and fur and wood? Too many to count—the graveyards, they are so full these days...

Catherynne M. Valente

What is it, Master Calligrapher, that little girls do in the way that spiders weave?" sleeve asked primly. The Calligrapher coughed, for his room was very dusty, and there was dust even on his eyelashes, and said: "It is right and proper," he said, "...

Catherynne M. Valente

We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.

Catherynne M. Valente

This is my heart—carry it with you. I will dream of you in the dark, and you will taste it in my tea, and feel it in my shoes.

Catherynne M. Valente

We treat our stone wives with much more care than they treat their warm ones, anyway. I personally dust mine once a week, and I know Khaamil gives them presents when I am not looking. These are yours - they are in your care, and you must be faithful.

Catherynne M. Valente

I will age for you, if it pleases you. I will match you, wrinkle for wrinkle, grey hair for grey hair, crease for crease, wrinkle for wrinkle. You will be so beautiful when you are old.

Catherynne M. Valente

What happens to anything beautiful? Viy ate it up.

Catherynne M. Valente

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

Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

Catherynne M. Valente

And if they thought her aimless, if they thought her a bit mad, let them. It meant they left her alone. Marya was not aimless, anyway. She was thinking.

Catherynne M. Valente

Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let us drink each other's blood in the night and betray each other in the sun. Let us lie and lust and take hundreds of lovers; let us...

Catherynne M. Valente

But you know, a wizard with black hair and a thick mustache put a curse on Moscow, and Petrograd, too, so that no one would be able to tell the truth without lying. If a novelist wrote a true story about how things really happened, no one would belie...

Catherynne M. Valente

I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard - one choice is never the end of the story.

Catherynne M. Valente

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...

Catherynne M. Valente

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

Author Bio

  • NameCatherynne M. Valente
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornMay 5, 1979
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Novelist; Writer
  • AwardsLambda Literary Award