American author (1979- )
All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
My passport is my troth; you may find upon it all my soul displayed.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
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
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.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Palimpsest
She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
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
Given that you'll never hear the truth out of anyone's mouth, you must listen to the lies--the specific lies they choose to tell.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
But your own dreams always seem so special, so terribly yours, until you grow up and figure out they're just like everyone else's.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
The eye is our master, and the eye worships light. That which makes light is good, that which takes it is to be feared. We have taken it from you, but we will give it back again. Make of that what you will.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
The prologue is the mother of the tale and the governess of the audience. She knows you have to bring them in slow, teach them how to behave. All it takes is a little music; a soft play of lights; a flash of skin; a good, beefy monologue to bring everyone up to speed before you expect them to give a witch's third tit who's king of Scotland.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Well, I started out as a poet with no interest in writing fiction at all. Everything I ever learned about writing until after my first novel was published was all in the realm of poetry. So they're very mixed up for me, and I've been accused of passing off poetry as fiction for awhile now.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
interview, Rain Taxi, November 21, 2013
It's Latin, which is an excellent language for mischief-making, which is why governments are so fond of it.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
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
A woman has but eight roles open to her: ingénue, mother, witch, detective, nun, whore, queen, and corpse.
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
I grew up reading science fiction and Fantasy and horror, so in my mind they're not that separate, and also, my degree's in classics. When I was first starting out, the notion that magic and monsters and witches and curses and blood debt and kings and queens and all that was not strictly speaking realism was crazy. In classics that's just Tuesday, that is the stuff of normal literature, that is not in any sense Fantasy; and if you are a classicist yourself, or read a lot into the Greek corpus, you'll find plenty of science fiction in there as well.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
interview, The Fantasy Hive, September 17, 2019