American author (1979- )
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
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
Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
A woman has but eight roles open to her: ingénue, mother, witch, detective, nun, whore, queen, and corpse.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
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
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
There's nothing the rich don't skim off the top.
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
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 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
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
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
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
Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
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
The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Six-Gun Snow White
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
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
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