Radiance
Catherynne M. Valente
Top 10 Best Quotes
“She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone.”
“Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That's the only way to live in the awful old ocean.”
“It was on the to-do list, but you know to-do lists. They get longer and longer until you might as well just carve the last items on your tombstone. Do the dishes.”
“A tale may have exactly three beginnings: one for the audience, one for the artist, and one for the poor bastard who has to live in it.”
“Because noir isn’t really a new thing at all. It’s just a fairy tale with guns. Your hardscrabble detective is nothing more than a noble knight with a cigarette and a disease where his heart should be. He talks prettier, that’s all. He’s no less idealistic—there’re good women and bad women, good jobs and bad jobs. Justice and truth are always worth seeking. He pulls his fedora down like the visor on a suit of armour. He serves his lord faithfully whether he wants to or not. And he is in thrall to the idea of a woman. It’s just that in detective stories, women are usually dead before the curtain goes up. In fairy tales, they’re usually alive.”
“Trouble is, most times, when you go looking to sell your soul, nobody's buying.”
“Anything is a poem if you say it often enough.”
“Night poured itself down my throat. Night was my wine and my meat. Night wed me and bedded me, widowed me and murdered me and resurrected me whole a thousand times over with each hour.”
“Mug your destiny in an alley and punch it until it gives you what you want”
“Remember that the expressions and vocal patterns you are committing to film will become synecdoches... That means something little that stands in for something big. Your smile will stand in for all human happiness. Your tears will be a model for everyone else's sadness. ...You have a responsibility to the people who will repeat your lines, wink your winks, imitate your laughter without knowing they are imitating anything. This is the secret power that actors hold. It is almost like being a god. We create what it is to be human when we stand fifty feet tall on a silk screen. So you'd better be good at it, for God's sake.”
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Book Keywords:
trouble, buy, death, storytelling, stories, actors, sadness, life, noir, soul, night, narratives, poem, creation, beginnings, poetry, movies, actors-wisdom
