Top 200 Katherine Arden Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Vasya felt cold despite the steam. “Why would I choose to die?” “It is easy to die,” replied the bannik. “Harder to live.”

— Katherine Arden

102. “Sometimes the travelers were wise enough to put their clothes on backward for protection – but not often; they mostly died. Vasya.”

— Katherine Arden

103. “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

104. “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.”

— Katherine Arden

105. “That which you call magic is simply not allowing the world to be other than as you will it.”

— Katherine Arden

106. “I’d rather my sons living, and my daughters safe, than a chance at glory for unborn descendants.”

— Katherine Arden

107. “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

108. “You are not alone, he said, in a voice no one but she could hear. Remember.”

— Katherine Arden

109. “You do not know what you are; can you know what I am?”

— Katherine Arden

110. “The world is not kind to girls alone.”

— Katherine Arden

111. “The brave live,” replied Morozko. “The cowards die in the snow. I did not know which you were.”

— Katherine Arden

112. “Only boys and fools think men are first in courage. We do not bear children.”

— Katherine Arden

113. “In the north, the wind had teeth that bit after sunset, even in summer. He.”

— Katherine Arden

114. “Live,” she said. “You said you loved me. Live.”

— Katherine Arden

115. “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

116. “She did not want to see hope in his eyes. She wanted him to be a monster. But monsters were for children.”

— Katherine Arden

117. “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

118. “It is easy to die,′ replied the bannik. ‘Harder to live.”

— Katherine Arden

119. “The glutton cannot turn his mind to God,” he said dismissively. “But neither can the starving man.”

— Katherine Arden

120. “Curiosity,” said Kasyan, didactically, “is a dreadful trait in girls.” He grinned with a sort of acid cheer. “Just ask Baba Yaga: the more one knows, the sooner one grows old.”

— Katherine Arden

121. “Irina, for God’s sake, praying will not keep her warm. Make soup.”

— Katherine Arden

122. “He” – she stumbled, finished – “He has been a joy to me.” And, drily, “Also a great source of frustration.”

— Katherine Arden

123. “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

124. “What name would encompass a creature like her?”

— Katherine Arden

125. “But he shook her, lifted her chin so that she had to meet his eyes again, spoke into her ear, the voice of winter in this airless cellar, reminding her of her joys and her mistakes, her loves and her flaws, until she found herself back in her own skin, shaken but able to think. She realized how close she had come, in that dark treasure-room, with reality collapsing like a rotten tree, to going mad.”

— Katherine Arden

126. “The wicked were not supposed to mourn, or to regret, or to have seen their silent God at last, in the steadfastness of another’s faith.”

— Katherine Arden

127. “Would you like to meet him?” Vasya asked suddenly. “I?” Olga asked, sounding shocked. Then her lips firmed. “Yes. Even a girl in love with a devil needs someone to negotiate for her.”

— Katherine Arden

128. “The sea is fair in the storm-shadow The sky wondrous without its blue But trust me; on the rock, the girl Excels the wave, the sky, and the storm – A. S. PUSHKIN.”

— Katherine Arden

129. “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

130. “Why carve things of wood,” she asked him, “if you can make marvelous things of ice with only your hands?” He glanced up. “I carve things of wood because things made by effort are more real than things made by wishing.”

— Katherine Arden

131. “That love of maidens for monsters, that does not fade with time.”

— Katherine Arden

132. “Well, I have a gift for your younger daughter. You shall make her swear to keep it by her always. You shall also swear never to recount to any living soul the circumstances of our meeting. Under these, and only these, conditions will I spare your son his life.”

— Katherine Arden

133. “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

134. “He saw all at once, as Pyotr had seen, the wild thing brought indoors, busy and breathless, a woman like other women. Like Pyotr, he felt a strange sorrow and shook it away.”

— Katherine Arden

135. “Come in, Vasya,′ he said. ‘It is cold.’ Could the snow-laden night speak, it might have spoken with that voice.”

— Katherine Arden

136. “But somewhere ahead, a light shone through the trees.”

— Katherine Arden

137. “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

138. “Having the world as you wish – that is not for the young,” he added, “They want too much.”

— Katherine Arden

139. “When the mist rises, and the smiling man comes walking, you must avoid large places at night. Keep to small.”

— Katherine Arden

140. “The cold embrace of the winter god is not for mortal maidens.”

— Katherine Arden

141. “A dvorovoi is a dooryard-spirit, rarer than a domovoi, less understood and sometimes vicious. This one peeled softly out of the starlight and the muddy earth, looking like a heap of filthy snow, faint as all the chyerti in Moscow were faint. Vasya.”

— Katherine Arden

142. “She was very small, and her eyes were pale blue and watery. She cried a lot. She was possibly the bravest person Brian knew.”

— Katherine Arden

143. “Mornings are wiser than evenings.”

— Katherine Arden

144. “There is magic in your bones.”

— Katherine Arden

145. “Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.”

— Katherine Arden

146. “The difference between uncanny happenings of the benevolent and the wicked sort was no thicker than rumor, and Dmitrii knew it.”

— Katherine Arden

147. “Wiser and greater men than you have tried outsmarting me, as you put it. They are dead now.” “Well,” said Coco very coldly, “that’s too bad for them. But I’m a girl, and I bet I can beat you at chess.”

— Katherine Arden

148. “Fools are often brave, for they do not understand.”

— Katherine Arden

149. “Zimnyaya Koroleva, they said. The winter-queen. It frightened her.”

— Katherine Arden

150. “I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed to me.”

— Katherine Arden