Wisdom Quote by Catherynne M. Valente — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“I wonder sometimes what the memory of God looks like. Is it a palace of infinite rooms, a chest of many jeweled objects, a long, lonely landscape where each tree recalls an eon, each pebble the life of a man? Where do I live, in the memory of God?”

“Men die. It's practically what they're for.”

“If you are a monster, stand up.”

“She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone.”

“Many people in this room have an Etsy store where they create unique, unreplicable artifacts or useful items to be sold on a small scale, in a common marketplace where their friends meet and barter. I and many of my friends own more than one spinning wheel. We grow our food again. We make pickles and jams on private, individual scales, when many of our mothers forgot those skills if they ever knew them. We come to conventions, we create small communities of support and distributed skills--when one of us needs help, our village steps in. It’s only that our village is no longer physical, but connected by DSL instead of roads. But look at how we organize our tribes--bloggers preside over large estates, kings and queens whose spouses’ virtues are oft-lauded but whose faces are rarely seen. They have moderators to protect them, to be their knights, a nobility of active commenters and big name fans, a peasantry of regular readers, and vandals starting the occasional flame war just to watch the fields burn. Other villages are more commune-like, sharing out resources on forums or aggregate sites, providing wise women to be consulted, rabbis or priests to explain the world, makers and smiths to fashion magical objects. Groups of performers, acrobats and actors and singers of songs are traveling the roads once more, entertaining for a brief evening in a living room or a wheatfield, known by word of mouth and secret signal. Separate from official government, we create our own hierarchies, laws, and mores, as well as our own folklore and secret history. Even my own guilt about having failed as an academic is quite the crisis of filial piety--you see, my mother is a professor. I have not carried on the family trade.”

“When it isn’t possible to attack what is said, they attack the one who said it.”

“To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill your conscience.”

“Throughout the day, make a conscious effort to follow your highest leadings, whatever feels most alive, exciting, or natural in each moment. You are looking for the thread of synchronicity and allowing it to guide you from one thing to the next.”

“Give it air & let the scar on your soul reveal itself, because, like the body, it too was made to heal itself.”

“When a candle seeks the company of the sun, it must accept the cost of being unseen.”

“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”