“Just about every science whiz can tell you how he or she took apart th...” — Catherynne M. Valente Quote

“Just about every science whiz can tell you how he or she took apart the TV or the radio when they were kids just to see how it worked. To see what the world was made of. Well, when I was a kid, I took apart fairy tales to see how they worked. To see what the world was made of.”

“You can't have whatever you want. But to a child who must ask permission for every single thing, adulthood looks like a constant parade of every desire's satisfaction. It is a heady and terrifying place. It is the Otherworld. It is Fairyland. In fantasy, we make this literal.”

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

“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.”

“The rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature- but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, Death can be kind.”

“I think that people should never be ashamed of wanting to move on with their lives and move on from their partners. I have a lot of girlfriends who were married in their early 20s and are now divorced because they basically grew apart - they evolved into another person in their 30s.”

“I think if you're going to cover a song, you should definitely take it apart and put it back together as if you wrote it. I don't think you should sing it the same way that the artist sang it - that's kind of pointless.”

“I always used to look at books and wonder how anybody could come up with so many words. But my divorce and then falling in love with somebody else has released in me an ability to write in other ways apart from songs.”

“To have a song work for the movie, it can't just be written apart and shoved in. It's got to come out of the action. It's got to talk about the characters, not the story: it has to augment that action.”

“I sleep seven hours. If I go to bed at two, I wake up at nine. If I go to bed at midnight, I wake up at seven. I don't wake up before - the house can fall apart, but I sleep for seven hours.”