American author (1979- )
Even if you've taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It's hard to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn't being naked, not really. It's just showing skin.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it'll stick to. You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
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
Secrets seem so important until there's no one left to spill them to.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
If you want to know about the beginning of things, you have to talk to the dead.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
That's what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It's practically what they're for.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Longing for the fantastic is a human constant, I think.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
interview, Electric Lit, December 1, 2015
Being on time is a filthy habit practised only by roosters and retirees.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Everything in creation is just a trick of the light--the only difference between heaven and hell is who's running those lights, who's got the switch, who knows the cues.
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
A tale may have exactly three beginnings: one for the audience, one for the artist, and one for the poor bastard who has to live in it.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
A library is never complete. That's the joy of it. We are always seeking one more book to add to our collection.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice
Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can't make it run the other way again.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
This is how you learn to see: You put together a crew. No one can see a damn thing clearly with only two eyes.
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
What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless