Caitlín R. Kiernan Quotes

I'm not kidding, and I'm not being hyperbolic — sometimes I hate this thing I do more than I could ever say. Sometimes, it seems that I spend my days dragging people whose only crime is that I am their creator through the filth and pain and degradation of my own despicable imagination. Where is the good in this? Where is the resolution? Where is the sense of it? If I had even a scintilla of belief in a "higher" intelligence of any sort, days like yesterday (and, by extension, today) would, on the one hand, give me some degree of sympathy for the idiot dieties unable to craft a better universe, and, on the other hand, it makes me grateful I have no such beliefs, because the anger I would have for that "higher" whatever would be inexpressible. And I cannot imagine that there are actually people out there — self-professed "horror" writers — who are trying to elicit these emotions in others, who are purposefully driving their characters on through all the futile, dead-end nightmares that might be devised. I would not do this. I swear I would not do this, if I could find other words in me.

El mundo está lleno de sirenas. Siempre hay una sirena cantándote para hacerte naufragar. Algunos de nosotros tal vez seamos más susceptibles que otros, pero siempre hay una sirena. Puede estar con nosotros toda nuestra vida, o pueden pasar muchos años, décadas, antes de encontrarla o de que nos encuentre. Pero cuando nos encuentra, si no tenemos la suerte de ser Odiseo escuchando la canción con perfecta nitidez atado al mástil del barco, tripulado sin riesgos por marineros con los oídos taponados con cera de abeja… si no tenemos esa suerte, somos otra clase de marino, de la clase que salta por la borda y se ahoga en el mar.

Her words, her jumbled, mad thoughts tamed or simply broken, made language, and she took another drag off the Lucky, exhaled, and read the last sentence aloud.

I've seen so goddamn much — I've seen so much that there's no reasonable excuse for looking away, because there can't be anything left that's more terrible than what has come before.

A book may only be judged for what it is, not what you'd like it to be.

He swallows a soothing mouthful of Jim Beam and rubs at his face, trying to rub away the familiar regret, that he can’t take back words that are already history, that have found their mark and already done their damage.

Ella me besó. Ella me está besando. Siempre, ella me besará. Ésta es la manera en la que funcionan los hechizos.

And it means snapshots, because that's what all stories I write come down to; each is a snapshot of who I was during however many days and weeks it was written. A fictional reflection of my mind fossilized, set in paper and ink, instead of stone. Memorialized, for better or worse. This is who I was, and this, and this, and this, and that, and most times I look back and wince. I'm rarely kind to who I was. But other times, looking back is bittersweet. Sometimes, I'm even grateful to the me of then who left a snapshot for the me of now. Maybe I should let go and join those who pretend the past is past, but it's a falsehood I've never learned to spin.

Making a story from the messy thoughts and half-thoughts in her head, building a world and lives and taking them apart again, fitting the pieces together another way until it feels right, as right as she can make it feel.

Give me enough words, enough attendant gravity, and I might fall into myself forever, crushed infinitely flat by my own hubris. It'd be a neat trick, I admit. I'd pay to see it — but from a safe distance, of course.

There are many words and phrases that should be forever kept out of the hands of book reviewers. It's sad, but true. And one of these is "self-indulgent." And this is one of those things that strikes me very odd, like reviewers accusing an author of writing in a way that seems "artificial" or "self-conscious." It is, of course, a necessary prerequisite of fiction that one employ the artifice of language and that one exist in an intensely self-conscious state. Same with "self-indulgent." What could possibly be more self-indulgent than the act of writing fantastic fiction? The author is indulging her- or himself in the expression of the fantasy, and, likewise, the readers are indulging themselves in the luxury of someone else's fantasy. I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.

No strings attached,” Constance said again. “Oh, there are always strings,” I replied. “Whether we put them there or not.

Chance wanting to defend her grandfather, but not about to leave the library, dustysafe sanctuary of shelves and glass cases and the musty smell of all the books, the door locked from the inside against birdnervous aunts who thought maybe a few slabs of smoked ham and a spoonful of mashed potatoes would make everything better, would make anything right again.

Las sirenas son pensamientos invasivos que incluso los hombres y mujeres cuerdos experimentan. Se les puede llamar sirenas, o se les puede llamar encantamientos. Da igual. Cuando Odiseo escuchó a las sirenas, dudo que jamás olvidara su canción. Probablemente permaneció hechizado por ella el resto de su vida. Incluso después de su terrible viaje de veinte años de duración, el certamen de arqueros, e incluso después de recobrar a Penélope y del «final» feliz de la historia, debió de seguir hechizado por aquella canción, en sus sueños y en sus momentos de vigilia. Cada vez que contemplaba el mar o el cielo.

You love someone. You don’t leave her to drown. And you don’t tell her she’s crazier than she already knows that she is!