[L]luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience. (Ancillary Justice)

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

Making a story from the messy thoughts and half-thoughts in her head, building a world and lives and taking them apart again, fitting the pieces together another way until it feels right, as right as she can make it feel.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

Originality is the most deadly mirage in all art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and you'll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

Stop it," Chance says out loud, angry raw, scornful voice that she hardly recognizes, "Jesus, just fucking stop it," but she's crying again, and her eyes burn, and she's so goddamn sick of the sound, the smell and salt bland flavor of her own useless tears.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

That's another sort of being haunted: starting something and never finishing it.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

That would be showing him a part of her soul, a part of her mind, that she's never risked showing anyone. The raw and squirming part that indifferent high-school counselor were always prying at, the part therapists tried to trick her into showing them for free, the part her parents hated her for. The light and the darkness behind her eyes. The soft places.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

The divine is always abominable." Houses Under The Sea

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others are, but there's always a siren. It may be with us all our lives, or it may be many years or decades before we find it, or it finds us. But when it does find us, if we're lucky we're Odysseus tied up to the ship's mast, hearing the song with perfect clarity, but ferried to safety by a crew whose ears have been plugged with beeswax. If we're not at all lucky, we're another sort of sailor stepping off the deck to drown in the sea.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

Time is your cathedral. You know the present is only a pretty illusion in the minds of men. And I think you know that nothing has ever passed away, not entirely.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

You could have kept on driving and never looked back. No one's ever had to stop for me. Or even hear me. Anyway, you did, and now I'm afraid the time for choice is behind us both.

— Caitlín R. Kiernan