AB > AB's Quotes

“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried. For a year I have called every black tree Marya Morevna; I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Lebedeva’s eyes shone. “Masha, listen to me. Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“The 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 brother’s cousin’s 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 doesn’t matter that she didn’t 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, Deathless

“You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“The rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature- but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, Death can be kind.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Marya Morevna! Don't you know anything? Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Men die. It's practically what they're for.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bright; it isn't like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“In his own country, Death can be kind.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“We both speak of illuminating the world, but we have different sources of light,”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“You are a woman, and must begin to live like one. By which I mean: have courage.”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“I am so very tired of the romance of the dead girl. Aren't you?”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“I'm more of a cocktail guy," he says, though he is also of the opinion that sparkling wine is an anytime beverage and appreciates Mirabel's style.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“I have literally always been the kid who believes in fairy tales but I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t a kid, I was a twenty-something in a cocktail bar who never feels old enough to drink”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“Be brave,’ she says. ‘Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea