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 youโll 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. ValenteRemember this when you are queen,โ he whispered hoarsely. โI moved the earth and the water for you.
Catherynne M. ValenteThe old order, it is good for the old. A farmer wants his son to be afraid of beautiful women, so that he will not leave home too soon, so he tells a story about how one drowned his brotherโs cousinโs friend in a lake, not because he was a pig who deserved to be drowned, but because beautiful women are bad, and also witches. And it doesnโt matter that she didnโt ask to be beautiful, or to be born in a lake, or to live forever, or to not know how men breathe until they stop doing it.
Catherynne M. Valente