Caitlín R. Kiernan Quotes

A phenomenon that might seem only backwards or silly when expressed at a social level becomes madness at the individual level.

Eventually you’ve got to understand that an answer isn’t the same thing as a solution, and a story is sometimes only an excuse. — Nic Pizzolatto

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

Sempre fui mulher, Imp. Os hormônios e a cirurgia não me modificaram de uma coisa para outra. Por isso odeio a expressão 'troca de sexo'. Ela é enganosa. Ninguém nunca trocou meu sexo. Eles simplesmente deixaram a carne mais em linha com a minha mente.

Fear is a poison that binds the minds of men and women to the same stone where Prometheus' liver is devoured forever by the cruel beaks of hungry birds.

It is not the task of the writer to “tell all,” or even to decide what to leave in, but to decide what to leave out.

Yeah, that’s what I saw. But I learned a long time ago that some stuff I see when I touch these things, some of it can be influence by other people who touched them before me, by what those people believed. If those beliefs are strong enough, Chance, it’s like they can leave impressions behind, the same way that actual events can.

You are who you are, until you aren’t anymore.

Chance takes a deep breath, fills her lungs with all the brightness getting in through the window, filling herself with that sane and ordinary air, with what she knows is real, reality to make her brave.

We ordered Chinese takeout, and my fortune cookie said, “Don’t stop now.

You think one's any different from the next? I mean, when it comes right down to brass tacks, people killing each other since they figured out how, that's all. Give them pretty names and numbers, but it's all the same to the worms.

That would be showing him a part of her soul, a part of her mind, that she's never risked showing anyone. The raw and squirming part that indifferent high-school counselor were always prying at, the part therapists tried to trick her into showing them for free, the part her parents hated her for. The light and the darkness behind her eyes. The soft places.

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.

"Consider," she said, "what it is, a unicorn. It is the incarnation of purity, an avatar of innocence. And here is the power of the talisman, for that state of grace which soon passes from each and every one is forever locked inside the horn, the horn become the phallus. And in the instant that it brought you, Natalie, to orgasm, you knew again that innocence, the bliss of a child before it suffers corruption."
I didn't interrupt her, but all at once I got the gist.
"Still, you are only a mortal woman, so what negligible, insignificant sins could you have possibly committed during your short life? Likewise, whatever calamities and wrongs have been visited upon your flesh or your soul, they are trifles. But if you survived the war in Paradise, if you refused the yoke and so are counted among the exiles, then you've persisted down all the long eons. You were already broken and despoiled billions of years before the coming of man. And your transgressions outnumber the stars.
"Now," she asked, "what would you pay, were you so cursed, to know even one fleeting moment of that stainless, former existence?

"Stop it," Chance says out loud, angryraw, scornful voice that she hardly recognizes, "Jesus, just fucking stop it," but she's crying again, and her eyes burn, and she's so goddamn sick of the sound, the smell and saltbland flavor of her own useless tears.