American author (1979- )
There is no such thing as a people who are all wicked or even all good. Everyone chooses. But even they, even they looked at people and saw only tools. No one is a cup for another to drink from.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
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The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
A woman has but eight roles open to her: ingénue, mother, witch, detective, nun, whore, queen, and corpse.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
But a death is a death. It's a thing you can't get around. It just sits there like a fat arsehole in black pyjamas, eats all your food, drinks all your wine, and demands you call it mister for the privilege.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
I savor bitterness -- it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to ... immigrate, you could say.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Palimpsest
All the rest of the nonsense a story requires is just a long seduction of the ending. You throw out murders and reversals and heroes and detectives and spies, juggle love affairs and near escapes and standoffs with marvellous guns, kidnappings and sorcery and comic relief and gravediggers and princesses and albino dragons, and it's all just to lure an ending into your bed.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
You have no pride. If you have it, misplace it. Under your mattress, in someone else's cupboard. It'll do you no favours.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
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
I don't deal in unvarnished truths. It's the varnish that counts. That makes it true.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Any story is a lie cunningly told to hide the real world from the poor bastards who live in it.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
It's occasionally refreshing to simply sit with someone who has known you a long while and still thinks you're worth a damn.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Being on time is a filthy habit practised only by roosters and retirees.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
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
Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
There's nothing the rich don't skim off the top.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Every step is a bargain with pain. Make your black deals in the black wood and decide what you'll trade for power. For the opposite of weakness, which is not strength but hardness. I am a trap, but so is everything. Pick your price. I am a huckster with a hand in your pocket. I am freedom and I will eat your heart.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Six-Gun Snow White
Secrets seem so important until there's no one left to spill them to.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance