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'‘Not everything that walks is a man,’' said the boulder conversationally, '‘and not everything that lies quiet is a stone,’ as the wolf remarked when the serpent bit him.'
Tanith Lee -
I know the old ways. There’s nothing evil there, only strange, and not even strange when you know it.
Tanith Lee
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Having failed, do you accept failure, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn to other things? When night comes, do you accept the blackness of it, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn and wait for morning? Or do you go on striving to light a candle against that dark however often the wind blows out the flame, however often the night returns?
Tanith Lee -
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.
Tanith Lee -
The sacrifice lives, but the sun’s still shining.
Tanith Lee -
When you fell in the sea, you should have heard them cheer. I made them rope the yard and fish you up. I said a ducking in water washes the witch-skill out of a woman until next full moon, and it would be bad luck to let you drown. How about that for a clever story? They’d believe anything if you make it sound silly enough.
Tanith Lee -
When a road is very dark it is hard to see the milestones on it.
Tanith Lee -
'Can I appeal?''Oh yes.''Will it do any good?''None whatsoever.'
Tanith Lee
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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.
Tanith Lee -
At some point, Dekteon saw, his own world had come close to such a religion, where women ruled and men died-but the road had taken a different turning. Now the hints of the ancient mystery remained only in songs. It was the men who were the masters. Maybe not for the better, and not for the worse, either. But all this was unimportant.
Tanith Lee -
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.
Tanith Lee -
They say the promise of a witch is like a plain woman, seldom remembered.
Tanith Lee -
Thinta flew safely, and I realized how much I preferred being with Hergal and feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright. Actually when I’m with Hergal I always realize how much I prefer being with Thinta and not feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright.
Tanith Lee -
What a son I’ve made. The midwives must have turned me in my labor so that I lay on your brain and crushed it.
Tanith Lee
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'All my life,' I said, 'knowledge has come to me for which I was not ready.'
Tanith Lee -
Now I saw braves hang themselves with amulets, leave tidbits for spirits, and still take an arrow in the neck. I, worshiping nothing and bribing nothing with prayers, rode among an enemy unscathed, scything them like summer wheat.
Tanith Lee -
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.
Tanith Lee -
Odd, how different different men’s fears could be.
Tanith Lee -
The rites were just the husks left over from deeper things, no pith remaining and no mystery, nothing to lift up the soul or go to the brain like wine. And, as generally happens, the more truth the ritual lost the more they bolstered it with significance. There is a saying among the Moi: The chief is clad in gold and purple, only the god dares to go naked.
Tanith Lee -
They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful.
Tanith Lee
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Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?
Tanith Lee -
This was the custom of the tribes, and perhaps, in the fogs of their pasts, the scheme had had its reasons. Yet like many of their ways, only the peel remained, the fruit was long gone.
Tanith Lee -
'What’s Hell?' inquired Wild-Eye. 'You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?'
Tanith Lee -
Dust had dimmed only a fraction, not enough. Decay had brushed with its rotten fingers not nearly all it should. It was an enchanted sweet, stuck in the throat of time.
Tanith Lee