Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

You'll forgive the flowery talk, won't you? Our family does so love to be told they are beautiful. Vanity is an old and venerable habit.

Why should I care about you first kiss,' he said. 'You can kiss anyone you like. But sometimes if you wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too.

I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

But she never could keep it straight. All the letters, the acronyms, the codes, the colors, changing like musical chairs, every week, every month. Games demons play. It meant nothing to her, except in a charming sort of way, as it had when Naganya wanted to play at interrogation, while the rest of them wanted chess.

Flowers are always more serious than they appear.

Rules are for those who can't think of a better way.

I used to look up at night and dream of the solar system. I know, I know—who didn't? But your own dreams seem so special, so terribly yours, until you grow up and figure out they're just like everyone else's. How perfect and beautiful and silent and dead each planet hung in my heart! All nine names, written in squiggly, shaky handwriting, glowing inside me.

Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.