The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)

by Catherynne M. Valente

Magic is funny like that. It’s not a linear thinker.

But no one may know the shape of the tale in which they move.

it’s the wonders I’m after, even if I have to bleed for them.

“My mistress used to say that you couldn’t ever really be naked unless you wanted to be. She said, ‘Even if you’ve taken off every stitch of clothing, you still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It’s quite difficult to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn’t being naked, not really. It’s just showing skin. And foxes and bears have skin, too, so I shan’t be ashamed if they’re not.’”

I cannot help that readers will always insist on adventures, and though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.

Autumn is the very soul of metamorphosis, a time when the world is poised at the door of winter—which is the door of death—but has not yet fallen. It is a world of contradictions: a time of harvest and plenty but also of cold and hardship. Here we dwell in the midst of life, but we know most keenly that all things must pass away and shrivel. Autumn turns the world from one thing into another. The year is seasoned and wise but not yet decrepit or senile.