American author (1979- )
Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
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Deathless
Secrets seem so important until there's no one left to spill them to.
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
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
It's very natural and very unsettling and sinister that the human tendency is to look at something that they can't categorize and slap a name that they're completely familiar with on it so that they don't feel quite so uncanny about it.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
interview, Electric Lit, December 1, 2015
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
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
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
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
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
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
An ending means there is order in the universe, there is a purpose to events. There is a reason to do things, an answer to be found, a solution key at the back of the book that maps to the problems posed. Find one ending, a real ending, and the universe is redeemed, ransomed from death--but death can never be that ending. It is a cheat, a quick shock, but no story truly ends with death. A death only begs more questions, more tales.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
The Moon cares nothing for our cute little troubles. She ate a thousand girls for lunch yesterday, and she was hungry again in an hour. She barely even looks at us.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
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
What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
And of course in stories there is always fate. It goes by the name of foreshadowing and it is the emperor of everybody.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
If you want to know about the beginning of things, you have to talk to the dead.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance