Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente
...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth5 May 1979
CountryUnited States of America
wish expected wish-you-the-best
I wish you the best that can be hoped for, and no worse than can be expected.
book stubborn littles
How much better if life were more like books, if life lied a little more, and gave up its stubborn and boring adherence to the way things can be, and thought a little more imaginatively about the way things might be.
goodbye mother father
Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, and that her mother would still love her even though she hadn’t waved goodbye. For one day her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn’t been her father anymore, he had been a soldier, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.
girl littles messy
The future is a messy, motley business, little girl.
running mean thinking
Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.
spring dancing stories
All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.
sometimes splendid wells
Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.
law honor novelists
It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.
hats
Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.
mean home tired
When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.
lonely memories men
I wonder sometimes what the memory of God looks like. Is it a palace of infinite rooms, a chest of many jeweled objects, a long, lonely landscape where each tree recalls an eon, each pebble the life of a man? Where do I live, in the memory of God?
beautiful girl two
But this is a story, and in a story there is always someone beautiful enough." - 'The Girl with Two Skins' from A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects
memories maps knows
That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory.
children believe unique
I believe we have an utterly unique specimen on our hands: a child who listens.