Tanith Lee Quotes
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The sacrifice lives, but the sun’s still shining.
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For an instant a half-formed prayer struggled into Havor’s mouth. But he could not utter it. Not for himself. For him those words were already drowned by the noise the thong-whip had made, or the sounds of children crying out of hunger or the cold or sheer misery in that grey house of orphans in the far North, eight years ago.
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What Is, is, what Was, was, but what is To Be, may be otherwise.
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Wealth, or large amounts of possessions seemed to him limiting. They brought their own prison with them. He preferred, since he had once known a kind of prison, to travel free.
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Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?
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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?
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They say the promise of a witch is like a plain woman, seldom remembered.
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It’s legend now, but legend is the smoke from the fire, and the wood that the fire consumes is the substance.
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We are the sum of our achievements, nothing more and nothing less. The mountain road which led us here was built by a dead people none of us would remember otherwise. What we create is the only part of us which can survive, or has the right to. Man is nothing, except to other men.
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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.
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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.
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When a road is very dark it is hard to see the milestones on it.
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It was as easy to be alone with six kin as it is to be alone by yourself, and maybe easier.
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'Sorry,' I said sweetly, 'I’m the new one with the quick temper and the uncontrollable homicidal tendencies.'
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'I have a plan,' said Xaros, 'improbable only in its genius.'
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The moon walks east of midnight,The sun walks west of noon.And though I love you, sweetheart,I will not sing your tune.
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I began to feel lighthearted. Don’t ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe.
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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.
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'Well now,' he said, 'was I as good as you were when you were me?'
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They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful.
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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.
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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.'
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A day out from the bay of Saardos, Drokler honored the brass Rorn god in the prow with a pound of incense.The blank god mask stared back at them through the pall of sweet blue smoke....It gazed in myopic stillness out over the long shock of the waves, ignoring their words, their presence, their costly offering.
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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.