Katherine Arden Quotes

The breath hitched in his throat. His hand caught hers, but he did not untangle her fingers. "Why are you here?" she asked him. For a moment she thought he would not answer, then he said, as though reluctant, "I heard you cry. ~ Katherine Arden

Where am I?"
He shrugged. "Back of the north wind. The end of the world. Nowhere at all. ~ Katherine Arden

But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. We have never needed saving before. ~ Katherine Arden

What name would encompass a creature like her? ~ Katherine Arden

Moscow, just past midwinter, and the haze of ten thousand fires rose to meet a smothering sky. To the west a little light lingered, but in the east the clouds mounded up, bruise-colored in the livid dusk, buckling with unfallen snow. ~ Katherine Arden

Live," she said. "You said you loved me. Live. ~ Katherine Arden

Stallions obey mares. ~ Katherine Arden

If I wanted to imprison someone until the end of days, would it not be best to use a prison that he has no desire to escape? ~ Katherine Arden

He is full of desire. Desire and fear. He does not know what he desires, and he does not admit his fear. But he feels both, strong enough to strangle. ~ Katherine Arden

It will be dark in a few hours. Ghosts are stronger in the dark. ~ Katherine Arden

Again, Pyotr knew a pang. He saw her heavy with child, bowed over an oven, sitting before a loom, the grace gone... ~ Katherine Arden

He picked her up and sank onto the warm oven-bench with her in his arms. He was gentle. His breath was the winter wind, but his flesh was warm, and his heart beat under her hand. ~ Katherine Arden

You will walk a long road," said Morozko. "If you have not the courage to meet it, better - far better - for you to die quiet in the snow. Perhaps I meant you a kindness. ~ Katherine Arden

Above all, Vasya wanted her horse. She wanted his strength, his warm breath, his uncomplicated affection. Without him, she was a lost girl in a dress; on his back, she felt invincible. ~ Katherine Arden

Every time you take one path, you must live with the memory of the other: of a life left unchosen. Decide as seems best, one course or the other; each way will have its bitter with its sweet. ~ Katherine Arden

Vasya gave him a dazzling smile, without warmth. "You shouldn't have told them I was a girl. Then they might have believed that I was dangerous. ~ Katherine Arden

You know nothing of this world, and now you mean to go out and die in it? ~ Katherine Arden

Men make themselves afraid," the Bear told her, smiling. "Imagining is worse than anything they actually see. ~ Katherine Arden

Not of the priest, and not of the devils, nor of the pits of fire. She had seen their devils. She saw them every day. Some were wicked, and some were kind, and some were mischievous. All were as human in their way as the folk they guarded. No, Vasya was frightened of her own people. They did not joke on the way to church anymore. ~ Katherine Arden

If this is the last decision I can ever make, at least it is my decision. Let me go, Alyosha. I am not afraid. ~ Katherine Arden

At his words, a bolt of longing tore through her, for blue skies and deep snow, for wild places and for silence, for his fire-lit house in the fir-grove, for his hands in the darkness. ~ Katherine Arden

Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it. ~ Katherine Arden

I don't feel like a traveler now," Vasya admitted, low, to Morozko .

"Neither do travelers, often enough," the frost-demon returned. ~ Katherine Arden

Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya. And both are mine. ~ Katherine Arden

I have plucked snowdrops at Midwinter, died at my own choosing, and wept for a nightingale. Now I am beyond prophecy. ~ Katherine Arden

Has the world run dry of warriors?' She asked. 'All out of brave lords? Are they sending out maidens these days to do the work of heroes?'
'There were no heroes,' said Vasya between her teeth. 'There was only me. ~ Katherine Arden

I carve things of wood because things made by effort are more real than things made by wishing. ~ Katherine Arden

Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya," he murmured over her head. "And both are mine. ~ Katherine Arden

Love is for those who know the griefs of time, for it goes hand in hand with loss. An eternity, so burdened, would be a torment. And yet - " He broke off, drew breath. "Yet what else to call it, this terror and this joy? ~ Katherine Arden

She hated him. She dreamed about him. None of it mattered. Might as well hate the sky - or desire it - and she hated that worst of all. ~ Katherine Arden

You are not alone, he said, in a voice no one but she could hear. Remember. ~ Katherine Arden

We who live forever can know no courage, nor do we love enough to give our lives. ~ Katherine Arden

I do not understand "damned." You are. And because you are, you can walk where you will, into peace, oblivion, or pits of fire, but you will always choose. ~ Katherine Arden

Many people say 'Better to die' until the time comes to do it," Morozko returned. ~ Katherine Arden

Don't panic. That's the first rule of survival. Never panic. ~ Katherine Arden

Stand aside," said the Bear. "I will have the old witch's children."
Pyotr deliberately stepped forward. "I know no witches. These are my children. ~ Katherine Arden

Having the world as you wish--that is not for the young," he added, "They want too much. ~ Katherine Arden

He" - she stumbled, finished - "He has been a joy to me." And, drily, "Also a great source of frustration. ~ Katherine Arden

I do not like half answers.'
'Stop asking half questions, then,' he said, and smiled with sudden charm. ~ Katherine Arden

Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name. ~ Katherine Arden

Irina, for God's sake, praying will not keep her warm. Make soup. ~ Katherine Arden

I want Dmitrii's admiration. I want a victory. I even want power, over princes and chyerti. I am allowed to want things, winter-king. ~ Katherine Arden

Chyerti are formed of the currents of human life; they ride them, but they do not interfere. ~ Katherine Arden

Close your eyes," he said into her ear. "Come with me." She did so, and suddenly she saw what he saw. She was the wind, the clouds gathering in the smoky sky, the thick snow of deep winter. She was nothing. She was everything. The power gathered somewhere in the space between them, between her flickers of awareness. There is no magic. Things are. Or they are not. She was beyond wanting anything. She didn't care whether she lived or died. She could only feel; the gathering storm, the breath of the wind. ~ Katherine Arden

I will be no one's bride, neither of man nor of God. ~ Katherine Arden

I loved her, and a curse made me forget. But she came for me and broke the curse and now I must go. ~ Katherine Arden

The world is wide, and the road will take us anywhere. ~ Katherine Arden

Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you. ~ Katherine Arden

With that sapphire, he bound your strength to him, but the magic did what he did not intend; it made him strong but also pulled him closer and closer to mortality, so that he was hungry for life, more than a man and less a demon. So that he loved you, and did not know what to do. ~ Katherine Arden

I did not know I was lonely, she thought, until I was no longer alone. ~ Katherine Arden

It is easy to die,' replied the bannik. 'Harder to live. ~ Katherine Arden

I believe in memory. I believe in remembering someone you love so well that it becomes kind of like a ghost. You remember someone so hard that it feels like they're in the next room, just around the corner, that they could walk in any minute. ~ Katherine Arden

Girls were happy to be married. Olga had glowed when her husband put a jewel on her finger and took her away. Maybe Vasya was jealous of her elder sister. But this daughter would never find a husband in Moscow. Might as well put a hawk in a dovecote. ~ Katherine Arden

It held clothing: a wolfskin cloak. Vasya stared down at these things with a delight she had never felt for the gold or gems of her dowry. They belonged to someone else, someone more capable and strange. ~ Katherine Arden

The glutton cannot turn his mind to God," he said dismissively. "But neither can the starving man. ~ Katherine Arden

Come in, Vasya,' he said. 'It is cold.' Could the snow-laden night speak, it might have spoken with that voice. ~ Katherine Arden

Married! Not to retreat, but to be the mistress of a lord's domain; not to be safe in a convent, but to live as some lord's breeding sow. ~ Katherine Arden

I will have my freedom. ~ Katherine Arden

God be with you,' Sasha said, cautiously.
'I certainly hope not," returned Polunochnitsa. ~ Katherine Arden

in his sledge. The girl was wearing her finest gown and wrapped in ~ Katherine Arden

It is not for men and women to presume what the Lord wishes. That way lies evil, when men put themselves too high, saying, I know what God wants, for it is also what I want. ~ Katherine Arden

But she was compelling: the moods passed like clouds over the clear green water of her gaze, and something about her movements, the line of her neck and braided hair, caught the eye and held it. ~ Katherine Arden

Suddenly Vasya understood why the women all begged him for prayers; understood, too, that his warm hand, the strong bones of his face, were a weapon, to use where the weapons of speech had failed. He would get her obedience thus, with his rough hands, his beautiful eyes. ~ Katherine Arden

A woman married. Or she became a nun. Or she died. That was what being a women meant. What then, was she? ~ Katherine Arden

I have never seen Tsargrad, or angels, or heard the voice of God. But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. ~ Katherine Arden

Men are also wicked," Vasya returned passionately. "And good, and everything in between. Chyerti are, just as men are, just as the earth herself is. Chyerti are sometimes wise and sometimes foolish, sometimes good and sometimes cruel. God rules the next world, but what of this one? Men may seek salvation in heaven and also make offerings to their hearth-spirits, to keep their house safe from evil. Did not God make chyerti, as He made everything else in heaven and earth? ~ Katherine Arden

You cannot take vengeance on a whole people because of the doings of a few wicked men. ~ Katherine Arden

She is ugly, thought Konstantin, and then wondered at himself. What was it to him if a girl was ugly? ~ Katherine Arden

The door opened. 'Come in Vasya,' Morozko said. 'It is cold. ~ Katherine Arden

But the rip in her blouse was large, her hunger vast, and her patience negligible even under better circumstances. ~ Katherine Arden

There was a time, not long ago
When flowers grew all year
When days were long
And nights star-strewn
And men lived free from fear ~ Katherine Arden

The world is not kind to girls alone. ~ Katherine Arden

I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks," he said. "I salute you, magician." He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. "To small minds," she told him, spine very straight, "any skill must look like sorcery. ~ Katherine Arden

You were such a sweet child, when I first met you by this very tree," remarked the Bear. "What happened?" His voice was mocking, but she could feel the tension in him when she began to undo the golden clasps.
"What happened? Love, betrayal, and time," said Vasya. "What happens to anyone who grows to understand you, Medved? Living happens. ~ Katherine Arden

He picked up a twist of straw and began to rub her down. In the space of a blink, the twist of straw became a brush of boar's hair. The mare stood with her ears flopping, loose-lipped with enjoyment. Vasya went nearer, fascinated. "Did you change the straw? Was that magic?" "As you see." He went on with his grooming. "Can you tell me how you do it?" She came up beside him and peered eagerly at the brush in his hand. "You are too attached to things as they are," said Morozko, combing the mare's withers. He glanced down idly. "You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will." Vasya, ~ Katherine Arden

Fear is first, then fire, then famine. ~ Katherine Arden

You do not know what you are; can you know what I am? ~ Katherine Arden

Am I a child? Always someone else must decide for me. But this I will decide for myself. ~ Katherine Arden

Solovey will take me to the ends of the earth if I ask it. I am going into the world, Alyosha. I will be no one's bride, neither of man nor of God. I am going to Kiev and Sarai and Tsargrad, and I will look upon the sun on the sea. ~ Katherine Arden

That which you call magic is simply not allowing the world to be other than as you will it. ~ Katherine Arden

As I could, I loved you. ~ Katherine Arden

The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it. ~ Charles Williams

Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity. ~ Katherine Anne Porter

It's not how good you are it's how good you want to be ~ Paul Arden

What I find very attractive, what I find sexual, are people who are unapologetic for who they are and comfortable with themselves. And I think with those two things sexual energy does come out because you're not hovering or censoring yourself, you're just being who you are. And being who you are is a very attractive quality in a person. ~ Katherine Moennig

Take down Arty and Chick and Papa and the twins, and all that's left of the Jar Kin, and, by then, Lily and me. Open our metal jars and pour all the Binewski dust together into that big battered loving cup that first held only Grandpa B. Bolt us to the hood of your traveling machine and take us on the road again. ~ Katherine Dunn

In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book, and to know that it will remain with you while life lasts? ~ Katherine Mansfield

My life is flashing lights and pointing fingers and uninvited visitors. Inches away, humans flatten their little hands against the wall of glass that separates us.
The glass says you are this and we are that and that is how it will always be. ~ Katherine Applegate

Geoff's arm emanated with a solid warmth I longed for after our days aboard S.S.
British-Craphole. ~ Katherine McIntyre

You dance because you have to. Dance is an essential part of life that has always been with me. ~ Katherine Dunham

The night had darkened to the murky sort where the air hung like descending clouds and the overhead branches made the liquid darkness even more impenetrable. ~ Katherine McIntyre

Women who pay their own rent don't have to be nice. ~ Katherine Dunn

I didn't want to think about it. Indulging someone's insanity like this couldn't be healthy. ~ Katherine Pine

I sit, tired of reading. I am sick of books. I can't tell where I leave off and the books begin. I'm nobody. I'm a polluted nothing. A confessed sin, an open door, the clutterer in the clutter. ~ Katherine Dunn

All of us can think of a book ... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us. ~ Katherine Paterson

The poems in Katherine Soniat's new collection, The Swing Girl, weave emotion's 'spray going farther than thought' with the 'bedrock things' of the trod-upon world. These poems eddy and pool in unpredictable and often surprising ways, much as the mind moves in its twilight state between waking and sleep. The fluidity of their cadence and the luminosity of their imagery carry the reader to the wellspring of poetry itself, that deep delight of which Robert Penn Warren spoke, whose source is, in Soniat's words, 'beauty on its way to being mystery.' ~ Kathryn Stripling Byer

To be alive and to be a 'writer' is enough. ~ Katherine Mansfield

I'm not squeamish. ~ Katherine Boo

Only by being present can you be happy. Too much attention to the past and the future takes the now away. And once it's gone, you never get it back. ~ Katherine Howe

Be true to your subject and you will be far more likely to create something that is timeless. ~ Paul Arden