Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

I smile when I want to smile. I don't want to be forced.

She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it.

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

You don't have to buy from anyone. You don't have to work at any particular job. You don't have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose.

No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.

I do what I love to do, what I choose to do.

I cannot do politics under someone else's control.

But on the other side I am very glad that I can at least enjoy some freedom.

I am not driven.

Our ideal of the future is that she should continue to render that service of her own free will.

Up to now I've done everything I've wanted to do the way I wanted to do myself.

I choose not to be at the whim of others. I want to be at my own whim.

I want to be in control of my own destiny.

I am responsible for me. I can kind of take care of what I need to do and should do what I like to do.

Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards.

I definitely do things on my terms, it may not seem that way but I actually do.

I pick and choose what I want to do at any given time, and what not to do, importantly. My agents, I won't hear about any offers or options.

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

Being a Sikh meant having to do what Mom and Dad said, and going to temple, and Mom and Dad choosing who I would marry. But going to an American school taught me that I was the one who's supposed to make those choices.

There is nothing people can throw at me to say: 'Do this, do that.'

People ought to have more control over their lives.

I feel I'm entitled to make my own decision.

Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.

Nothing that you do will ever feel good if you let people convince you that you have no choice.

I've never reacted well to other people telling me what to do.