War is not for winning, Masha,” sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. “It is for surviving.
This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.
However unlikely it may seem, it is the truth and, therefore, one hundred percent likely.
Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.
Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.
You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality.
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.
Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.
And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.
First, the avid student must be aware that when the world was young it knew only seven things: water, life and death, salt, night, birds and the length of an hour.
Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago.
It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to… immigrate, you could say.
… relationships required such vigilance, such attention. You had to hold them together by force of will, and other people took up so much space, demanded so much time. It was exhausting.
I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?
That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.
In both marriage and war you must cut up the things people say like a cake and eat only what you can stomach.
Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.
War must always be done out of sight, it shocks people and they stop immediately.
And in her long nights, in her long house of smoke and miller’s stones, she baked the bread we eat in dreams, strangest loaves, her pies full of anguish and days long dead, her fairy-haunted gingerbread, her cakes wet with tears.
So a half-breed goatsnake, a Yith, and a Ghast walk into a bar.
We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.
Nothing real is pretty, she said. Only a doll is pretty. And a pretty doll drinks out of a tiny cup forever. A woman wants a big cup.
Trouble is, most times, when you go looking to sell your soul, nobody’s buying.
It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.
Those were all big words, to be sure, but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.
Your past’s a private matter, sweetheart. You just keep it locked up in xbox where it can’t hurt anyone.
A body can only deliver up the truth its bones know, Its blood, which is its history.
I thought: this is how you make a human being. A human being is beautiful and sick. A human being glitters and starves.
You will live as you live in any world,’ Madame Lebedeva said. She reached out her hand as if to grasp Marya’s, as if to press it to her cheek, then closed her fingers, as if Marya’s hand were in hers. ‘With difficulty, and grief.
I ate all of my husbands. First I ate their love, then their will, then their despair, and then I made pies of their bodies – and those bodies were so dear to me!
I’m gonna be good at something other than marrying, darlings. Besides, I don’t want them. I don’t even wanna screw them, how am I gonna marry them?
It’s a dreadful world with only your own heart to drive you.
I got a heart like a half bottle of no-label whiskey.Nothing to brag on,but enough for you, and all your friends, too.
A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.
But the trick most folk are so awfully fond of learning, the absolute second they’ve got hold of a heart, is to pretend they don’t have one at all. It is the very first danger of the hearted.
I expect everyone in Boston has something like that ring, which is why I am glad I have never been to Boston.
I have to know, I have to or else you will just rule me until the end of everything because you know and I do not.
And hell, sometimes the best thing is to put on a black dress and become a wicked stepmother. There’s power in that, if you’re after power.
Let me tell you something, kid,” said Mrs. H of Boston and Beacon Hill. “Magic is just a word for what’s left to the powerless once everyone else has eaten their fill.
When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can’t make it run the other way again.
there is only this world, as it is now, and there has never been another, can never be any other.
So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.
you have to have the right sort of stone. Peridot for mothers, girasol for lovers, sapphire for sadness, and garnet for joy.
No one belongs when they are new to this world. All children are Changelings.
Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.
The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.
Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That’s the only way to live in the awful old ocean.
When spring comes, I shall meet you at the Municipal Library, and you will see how much I’ve learned! You’ll be so proud of me and love me so!”Oh, Ell, but I do love you! Right now!”One can always bear more love,’ the Wyverary purred.
A Fairy must make her own way in the world, for the world will never make way for her. That, incidentally, is the First Theorem of Questing Physicks, which you’ll learn all about when you’re older and don’t care anymore.
You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.
I’m not a Knight. I’m a Bishop. Or at least I am trying to be. And traveling with you is the most slantwise, backward thing I can possibly think of, which in this place probably means it’s the right thing to do.
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.
You can’t trust just any old person who comes along with a hundred puffins and a pretty face!
I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.
I do not serve your personal issues, Morevna. I serve the People, and the People will have crimes against their body answered. You fought at Leningrad. So did I. Why should he be spared?”Somebody ought to be.
The burnt-off connectors and shadows where Ravan once filled my spaces— those, I think, are the sensations of grief.
This is not a lie: Memory has the taste and texture of cooked meat. Eat it and live. Remember, but only what it is licit to remember.In Aerograd, the word for meat and memory are the same.
Memory is like that. It alters itself so that girlsare always trapped under the earth, waiting in the dark.
Perhaps memory is a thing that everyone involved has to work at, like stitching up a big quilt out of everything that ever happened to you.
Everyone has their invisible cloak of all things past.
Yes, Marya thought, the smell of woodsmoke and old snow pushing back her long black hair. Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.
That is the trouble with standing up to people, of course. Once you start doing it, you can hardly stop.
Sometimes, magic is like that. It lands on your head like a piano, a stupid, ancient, unfunny joke, and you spend the rest of your life picking sharps and flats out of your hair.
Magic has a logic, like algebra. Once you get to know it, it’s easy. If this, then that. You write with a pencil, you don’t make frog soup with it.
All Librarians are Secret Masters of Severe Magic. Goes with the territory.
Music has more rules than math or magic and it’s twice as dangerous as both or either.
When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.
Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.
What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.
It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.
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.
But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs.
it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one’s stomach than of one’s nation
Just tell yourself a story that’ll satisfy you and pretend he told it.
…the villagers had decided that ‘practical’ meant ‘extremely magical and full of interesting objects’ and had officially subtitled themselves, Winesap: A Pracktical Towne.
I abandoned her. It’s the one capital crime of fatherhood. Mothers can fail a thousand different ways. A father’s only job is: do not abandon this child.
It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived – I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.
She was … unhappy. It was part of her, you could not separate her from it. She was sad the way a horse is strong or a bird flies.
The Glasshobs built it to keep an eye on the stars, who have a tendency to run off on adventures and forget about how much we down-below folks need to navigate and cast horoscopes and meet lovers on balconies.
You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.
Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.
Funny how “question” contains the word “quest” inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.
Don’t worry, my little lump of rock. Everybody gets a chance to choose. Or else where would irony come from?
She had a highly developed sense of humor which in some lights looked a bit like a sense of justice.
The oligarchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just. They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful. Thus justice and mercy will always escape them.
It’s Survival of Them Who’s Best at Nicking Things, girl!
Everything in this place was livid and lurid and living, and when he loved her and hurt her all at once she lived, too, higher and harder than she had thought she could.
Stories,’ the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, ‘are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.
The great blessing and great cruelty of youth is that there seems to be time enough.
I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard – one choice is never the end of the story.
The Heart of Fairyland is a story,” she said, and she felt so warm and light and full of rightness of it that she thought she might faint.
Life is like that. Death sweeps it away. That’s what death is for. That’s why they keep telling this story. It’s the only story.
Still life is boring. Never stand still! Jumping bean life!
September drank in the starry sky with a longing and a tugging and a sigh. All the way up, to that enormous crescent in the black.
Why should he be spared?”Someone ought to be.’ And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.
I am here to tell youWe are all of us just as mighty as planets—and you too,We’ll let you in, we’ve got stalwart to spare—But you might have to sleep on the floor.
Storytelling can save you. Both the telling and the listening.
A tale may have exactly three beginnings: one for the audience, one for the artist, and one for the poor bastard who has to live in it.
Any story told is a lie cunningly told to hide the real world from the poor bastards who live in it.
And that is the last lesson of childhood: You spend all your years fighting against the injustice of big folk and their big rules until you are ready to rule yourself.
I shall be as brave as a my Toad, he thought, for my Toad never hides under the bed when she is afraid of lightning or bats. She sticks out her tongue and eats them.
Did you never wonder why the old books are so full of dragons chasing after maidens? The serpents think the girls are orphans, and long to get them away in a lair so that they may grow up strong and tall.
How poor you are, September. You make my heart groan. I know about Homesickness. It begins with H. What will you do?
all children are required to attend School, which is like a party to which everyone forgot to bring punch, or hats, or fiddles, and none of the games have good prizes.
Now, in the Kingdom of School, to be asked into another child’s room is like being asked inside their heart.
I will age for you, if it pleases you. I will match you, wrinkle for wrinkle, grey hair for grey hair, crease for crease, wrinkle for wrinkle. You will be so beautiful when you are old.
That’s Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It’s nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.
Night poured itself down my throat. Night was my wine and my meat. Night wed me and bedded me, widowed me and murdered me and resurrected me whole a thousand times over with each hour.
It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.
As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.
Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.
Every cat knows how to keep his owner feeding them: You may scratch and bite ninety-nine times, but the hundredth time, you must leap into a lap and press your nose to their nose. Rules are for dogs.
Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. You’ll never wish you’d held back a little more.
Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.
September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.
Rules are for those who can’t think of a better way.
Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.
Woman! Come out! I have—” She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. “I have come to rescue you,” she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
Towns can be cruel and vicious — and sorry. In the wood, in the clearing, in the sun, we will one day find and crown her and keep her: our own witch, the witch of Wiscasset, the Blueberry Queen of Maine.
I’m not afraid of you!’ The wombat yelled. ‘I saw you get stuck in the washing machine once. Round and round you went! Who’s afraid of something that can’t defeat a rinse cycle?
The ghosts will eat everything because the bellies of ghosts want the whole world, just to fill one tiny corner.
It is important to announce your intentions at top volume, she thought, or your intentions will think you are ashamed of them.
No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story.
All jobs are odd, or they would be games or naps or picnics.
But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again–after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.
You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.
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.
Being Necessary is food no less than cabbages and strawberry pies.
I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.
Why should I care about you first kiss,’ he said. ‘You can kiss anyone you like. But sometimes if you wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too.
Time is no one’s friend–time has no social niceties and holds the door for nobody nowhere. But I hold the door for time, with my one good paw.
You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.
He didn’t even know how to talk about it. He had practiced not talking about the things he knew until no man could be called his equal.
She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.
Love me, and I will laugh for you, and if you can make me laugh, my laughter will, quite simply, ransom the whole of the world from death.
Monsters almost always are culture’s way of working out their fears.
Are you the only human in the world then? And all of the rest of us monsters?
You’ll forgive the flowery talk, won’t you? Our family does so love to be told they are beautiful. Vanity is an old and venerable habit.