Tanith Lee Quotes
-
Brother, sister, only words; but this, a reality, a destroyer at the gate. What could it have mattered, after all, to celebrate her hungry youth, and his, before the sword fell on her? All the plots and schemes, the moralities and codes of men, seemed dust in the face of death.
-
I see you laugh, and rightly so. What is this silly old fool rambling on about? Good for you. Never respect years, only deeds.
-
There were clouds like sharks with open jaws in the sky that morning.
-
To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. If it teaches anything, it teaches you that you must not trust to the thing you know, that it is better to build on shifting sand than the rock which may confound you on the day it shatters.
-
There are two clever tricks men know. One is to make much of nothing. The second is to make nothing of much.
-
Kernik had stumbled on an immutable truth, a truth older than the world. Priests claimed the gods made men, but this was not so. Men made the gods. Firstly, by forming them in clay, by chipping them from stone. Secondly, and more importantly, by believing in them, believing in them utterly.
-
I would be a drudge now, among the tents, and I would kneel before the warriors, and run from them when they shouted at me. I would be a woman, as women were reckoned in this place, a half-souled, witless animal, created to bear and pleasure men: an afterthought of the god.
-
Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then.
-
'Can I appeal?''Oh yes.''Will it do any good?''None whatsoever.'
-
She had never acquired in-between shades of character, had not had the opportunity. She had been utterly selfish, and was now selfless, because she had never become a whole person, did not like herself, or know herself. Nor had she ever gained sufficient wisdom to be properly horrified at what she meant to do. She couldn’t think that intensely.
-
I know the old ways. There’s nothing evil there, only strange, and not even strange when you know it.
-
Odd, how different different men’s fears could be.
-
Pirates have always fascinated me.
-
I said, 'When you are on your deathbed, Erran, pray that you never meet me in the place you are going to.'
-
The sun in his golden chariot had driven almost to the last meadow of the sky.
-
'Like most loners,' said Moddik, 'you carry the seeds of violent authority. Loners need to be bossy. They quickly learn it’s the only method they have of shoving people off their backs.'
-
'When will they fight?' I asked.'Tomorrow. Daybreak. It is man’s work.'I laughed. 'I too have fought and killed, Kotta. It is the work of fools, not men.'
-
The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned.
-
I should have felt pity, but I felt only contempt. I knew had it been a girl she would have mourned less, and it angered me.
-
Rewa was brave. At least, she was thick-witted enough to be able to ignore personal danger to a great extent.
-
If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.
-
White was the most fashionable color among the nobility and the rich. Because, of course, white is so easily dirtied, and only the wealthy would do little enough that it could not be spoiled.
-
The irony of her story is merely that her love became, in the end, her motive rather than her goal, the doorway rather than the house.
-
I had not yet learned the lesson that when you are forever telling yourself that such and such is worth the price, then the price is too high and has been paid too often.