Quotes by 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.”

“I had some peculiar ideas about love. Ill tell you what I thought on the subject back then: its about as much use as a barrel with no bottom. When I fed the pigs and two of them got to scrapping ov...”

“That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.”

“Night poured itself down my throat. Night was my wine and my meat. Night wed me and bedded me, widowed me and murdered me and resurrected me whole a thousand times over with each hour.”

“September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself. She could not quite have put it into words, but she felt profoundly, at the bottom of her new, shining heart, that she could...”

“1. Santa Claus is real. However, your parents are folkloric constructs meant to protect and foritfy children against the darknesses of the real world. They are symbols representing the return of th...”

“It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.”

“As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.”

“A Wyverns body is different from the body of a young girl in several major respects. First, it has wings, which most young girls do not (there are exceptions). Second, it has a very long, thick tai...”

“Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.”

“We are halves, but we make an infinite whole.”

“8. Santa Claus is concerned about the problem of Arctic ice. The ice is the spouse of the elves, and she is sick. She is the primary source of their magic, as the elves cannot be separated from the...”

“Because Im a cat. A big one, the Panther of Rough Storms, in fact. But still a cat. If theres a saucer of milk to spill, Id rather spill it than let it lie. If my mistress grows absent-minded and l...”

“Every cat knows how to keep his owner feeding them: You may scratch and bite ninety-nine times, but the hundredth time, you must leap into a lap and press your nose to their nose. Rules are for dogs.”

“Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. Youll never wish youd held back a little more.”

“Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three facesthe face they get when theyre children, the face they own when theyre grown, and the face th...”

“Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.”

“September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.”

“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 t...”

“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 eyela...”