Deathless Quotes

“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

“I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.”
― 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

“She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Slowly, without taking his eyes from hers, the man in the black coat knelt before her. “I have come for the girl in the window,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“After love, no one is what they were before.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“What is the world but a bo xing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“If you want to kill yourself, do not use us as your knife.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Marya put down her fork. “Why are you doing this, Koschei? I have had lovers before. You have, too. Remember Marina? The rusalka? She and I swam together every morning. We raced the salmon. You called us your little sharks.”

The Tsar of Life held his knife so tightly Marya could see his knucklebones bulging. “Were any of them called Ivan? Were any of them human boys all sticky with their own innocence? I know you. I know you because you are like me, as much like me as two spoons nested in each other.” Her husband leaned close to her, the candlelight sparking in his dark, shaggy hair. “When you steal them, they mean so much more, Marousha. Trust me. I know. What did I do wrong? Was I boring? Did I ignore you? Did I not give you enough pretty dresses? Enough emeralds? I’m sure I have more, somewhere.”

Marya lifted her hand and laid it on her husband’s cheek. With a blinking quickness, she drove her nails deep into his face. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that. I have worn nothing but blood and death for years. I have fought all your battles for you, just as you asked me. I have learned all the tricks you said I must learn. I have learned not to cry when I strangle a man. I have learned to lay my finger aside my nose and disappear. I have learned to watch everything die. I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too. And if I have watched all my soldiers die in front of me, if I have only been saved by my rifle and my own hands, if I have drunk more blood than water for weeks, then I take the human boy who stumbled into my tent and hold him between my legs until I stop screaming, you will not punish me for it. Are we not chyerti? Are we not devils? I will not even hear your punishment, old man.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Do you know, Masha, how revelation comes? Like death. So sudden, though you knew all along it must occur. A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“The man who knelt before her would have sprung from her needles, even down the ghostly flecks of silver in his hair. She had not known before that she wanted all these things, that she preferred dark hair and a slightly cruel expression, that she wishes for tallness, or that a man kneeling might thrill her.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“In both marriage and war you must cut up the things people say like a cake and eat only what you can stomach.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

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

“It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“No one is now what they were before the war. There’s just no getting any of it back.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Forests have secrets,' he said gently. 'It's practically what they're for. To hide things. To separate one world from another.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“He'll burn you down like wax if you let him. You'll think it's love, while he dines on your heart. And maybe it will be. But he's so hungry, he'll eat you all in one sitting, and you'll be in his belly, and what will you do then?”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Yes," he growled, "yes, I will put you there and turn out the light in your eyes and come to stare at you for centuries, to pore over you, because you are mine, my treasure, my hoard, and I cannot keep you and I cannot let you go.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Husbands lie, Masha. I should know; I've eaten my share. That's lesson one. Lesson number two: among the topics about which a husband is most likely to lie are money, drink, black eyes, political affiliation, and women who squatted on his lap before and after your sweet self.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I savor bitterness--it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Why should he be spared?'
'Someone ought to be.' And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“But the thought arrived inside her like a train: Marya Morevna, all in black, here and now, was a point at which all the women she had been met—the Yaichkan and the Leningrader and the chyerti maiden; the girl who saw the birds, and the girl who never did—the woman she was and the woman she might have been and the woman she would always be, forever intersecting and colliding, a thousand birds falling from a thousand oaks, over and over.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless