I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.
Catherynne M. ValenteSeptember did not want to feel for the Marquess. Thatโs how villains get you, she knew. You feel badly for them, and next thing you know, youโre tied to train tracks. But her wild, untried heart opened up another bloom inside her, a dark branch heavy with fruit.
Catherynne M. ValenteHumanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
Catherynne M. ValenteI will never be without information,' she determined. 'I will do better than my sisters. If a bird or any other beast comes out of that uncanny republic where husbands are grown, I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.' For this is how Marya Morevna surmised that love was shaped: an agreement, a treaty between two nations that one could either sign or not as they pleased.
Catherynne M. ValenteThat's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.
Catherynne M. Valente