Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

Movies can provide tear-inducing or comically-entertaining representations of love, but many agree that its deeper conflicting complexities often seem unfathomable.

Well I think if you really go out with someone for quite a long time you do get to know each other very, very well, you go through the good times, you go through the bad times. You know both personally, but also within a relationship as well.

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

Sex is hardly ever just about sex.

I believe there are some things meant only for you and the person you love.

...he had a way of taking your hand which made it clear he'd have to be the one to let go." From Alice Hoffman's "Local Girls", pg.102.

I do love you. I mean, love has nothing to do with this.

Isn't it strange that I know you'd risk your life to save mine, but I don't even know what your favorite color is?

I guess like any friendship, marriage, or whatever it is familiarity breeds more contempt, and more love. They're just more settled with each other now.

With the passage of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the color of our blood and the salt of our tears.

Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped palms.

You say love is just a four letter word.

I am so glad I found you and didn't kill you" - Mara Jade Skywalker to Luke Skywalker

Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.

You don’t annoy me.” Carefully he rebuttoned the placket of her shirt. “I thought you did, at first. But now I realize it was more like the feeling you get when your foot’s been asleep. And when you start moving, the blood coming back into it is uncomfortable . . . but also good. Do you understand what I mean?” “Yes. I make your feet tingle.” A smile came to his lips. “Among other things.

Relationships are super complicated and always have dark and light in them. And all good sexual relationships do, too.

Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.

Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!

When you look in the eyes of someone and that's what you look into, I knew him with my blood. It's not something you can actually ever get to, I don't think, without that. It was a huge gift, as an actor.

You are a child if you thought I didn’t know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I’ve been—” He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse.

There is no formula to relationships.

I love you. You are closest to my heart, closer than any other human being. You are my extension. You are my prayer. You are my belief in God. For better or worse you inherit me.

Love is like a batik created from many emotional colors, it is a fabric whose pattern and brightness may vary.

He felt married to her, that was all.

He'd only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam's clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark. It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didn't have what Sam and Grace had. We weren't even close to having it. I didn't think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years.