No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Marya pinned out her childhood like a butterfly. She considered it the way a mathematician considers an equation. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can't make it run the other way again. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
If I stop, I shall sink and die. That's the way I'm made. I have to keep going always, and even when… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
How much better if life were more like books, if life lied a little more, and gave up its stubborn and boring… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
You and I, being grown-up and having lost our hearts at least twice or thrice along the way, might shut our eyes… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
There's more than one way between your world and ours. There's the changeling road, and there's the Ravishing, and there's those that… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons,… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
I'm very touchy feely with my fandom, in part because they've never done me wrong or hurt me in any way. This… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Who are you?" "I am Death," said the creature. "I thought that was obvious." "But you're so small!" "Only because you are… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Most of them... most of us never figure it out. Bad dream, they think, or good one. Funny rash, never really goes… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
I don’t want to be a Princess,” she said finally. “You can’t make me be one.” She knew very well what became… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Living alone,' November whispered, 'is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears and are thus inherently incredibly interesting and powerful. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Whenever one does extraordinary things, someone is bound to try to repeat them for themselves. It's the way of the world. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Such lonely, lost things you find on your way. It would be easier, if you were the only one lost. But lost… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
When I saw him I thought I could curl up inside him and go to sleep and never wake up." "Men are no good… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“You couldn't ever really fix a sad story. You could only make another. And another. And another, until you found the right one at… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“He considers it for a moment and spits out the seeds, which sprout, quickly, into tiny junkblossoms sizzling with recursive algorithms. The algorithms wriggle… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.” — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“The cicada lies in the earth for seventeen years. It is warm and dark there, it is soft and wet. Its little legs curl… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Her heart was bruised by the kiss, smashed and surprised and unsettled by it. September thought kisses were all nice, sweet things asked for… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“September put her hand on the grip of the Rivet Gun. She’d only just gotten it, and she’d promised to take copious notes for… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it. — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
“You see, the future is a kind of stew, a soup, a vichyssoise of the present and the past. That's how you get the… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
Fairy tales have always been about getting through the worst of everything, the darkest and the deepest and the bloodiest of events. They are… — Catherynne M. Valente Copy Share Image
