Being Necessary is food no less than cabbages and strawberry pies.

— Catherynne M. Valente

Be my friend and love me, for the world is terribly lonely, and I am sad.

— Catherynne M. Valente

Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That's the only way to live in the awful old ocean.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunge up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in the world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again--after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.

— Catherynne M. Valente

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 Nagoya wanted to play at interrogation, while the rest of them wanted chess.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But that wouldn't be honest. That wouldn't be real. That would give you the idea that a life is a simple thing to tell, that it's obvious where to start--BIRTH--and even more obvious where to stop--DEATH. Fade from black to black. I won't have it. I won't be one of the hundreds telling you that being alive flows like a story you write consciously, deliberately, full of linear narrative, foreshadowing, repetition, motifs. The emotional beats come down where they should, last as long as they should, end when they should, and that 'should' come from somewhere real and natural, not from the tyranny of the theater, the utter hegemony of fiction. Why, isn't living easy? Isn't it grand? As easy as reading aloud. No. If I slice it all up and stitch it back together, you might not understand what I've been trying to say all my life: that any story is a lie cunningly told to hide the real world from the poor bastards who live in it. I can't. I can't tell you that lie... If I fixed it, so time goes the way you expect, you might come away thinking I know what the hell I'm doing.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But the trick most folk are so awfully fond of learning, the absolute second they've got hold of a heart, is to pretend they don't have one at all. It is the very first danger of the hearted.

— Catherynne M. Valente

But the trouble is, I do want to be surprised. I want to choose. I broke the heart of my fate so that I could choose. Furthermore, I never chose; I only saw a little girl who looked like me standing on a gear at the end of the world and laughing, and that's not choosing, not really. Wouldn't you rather I chose you? Wouldn't you rather I picked our future out of all the others anyone could have?

— Catherynne M. Valente