Quotes by Catherynne M. Valente

“Still life is boring. Never stand still! Jumping bean life!”

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

“I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.”

“Living alone,' November whispered, 'is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well that they become like...”

“I'm sure you've heard people talk about their Heart's Desirewell that's a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. They're big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon ...”

“She was ... unhappy. It was part of her, you could not separate her from it. She was sad the way a horse is strong or a bird flies.”

“The Glasshobs built it to keep an eye on the stars, who have a tendency to run off on adventures and forget about how much we down-below folks need to navigate and cast horoscopes and meet lovers o...”

“The tales lovers tell each other about how they met are hushed and secret things. They change year by year, for we all meet many times as we grow up and become different and new and exciting people...”

“September drank in the starry sky with a longing and a tugging and a sigh. All the way up, to that enormous crescent in the black.”

“I have survived, but I have not been spared.”

“Why should he be spared?''Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.”

“You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.”

“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.”

“Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.”

“Funny how "question" contains the word "quest" inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.”

“September felt panic burn through her like gasoline. Why couldn't he understand her? "But I didn't [choose]! I have hardly had a chance to breathe since I got here and it's always like that in Fair...”

“Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a leopard. You chose to get a witchs Spoon back, and to make friends with a wyver...”

“Don't worry, my little lump of rock. Everybody gets a chance to choose. Or else where would irony come from?”

“Some things a girl has in her to say no to and some things cut her down before she knows shes gone. Sure, some twiggy, thorny snap in her says: no, this is awry, this is a bent thing, in that place...”

“Your Eve was wise, John. She knew that Paradise would make her mad, if she were to live forever with Adam and know no other thing but strawberries and tigers and rivers of milk. She knew they would...”