Marion Zimmer Bradley Quotes & Sayings

At last she drifted into sleep, and in the country of sleep she found herself standing in the orchard where she had spoken with Uther, where she had dried his tears with her veil. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Men are by nature wanderers ... Every people has moved from somewhere, and had to learn the ways of the land from the people who were there before. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

We were discussing civilization and the fact that young men among the Greeks at that time were idiots and uneducated, so the men had emotional and friendly relationships with members of their own sex. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a real trouble, no one could be kinder. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

They have known one another since they were young, and if they cannot forget that once they loved in a way that comes not twice to any man — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

If you truly believe that, my lady and queen, then for you it is truth: all the Gods are One God and all the Goddesses one Goddess. But would you presume to declare one truth for all of mankind throughout the world? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

And indeed there is little opportunity for the old and poor to sin, except to doubt God's goodness, and if God cannot understand why we doubt that, then he is not as wise as his priests think, heh heh heh ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I wasn't a child at 13, were you? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

There's no "magic secret"; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day - bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

He used to sit on my lap. I was sort of ambivalent about that. He was surviving any way he could. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I never left you; I never will leave you. While life lasts, and beyond, I am here. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

A woman is never free to bear a child unless she is also free to abort it. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

She cried aloud, with a great mourning cry for all that she had never known in this life, and the agony of a bereavement unguessed till this moment. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Gave so much time and thought to units - the Nation, the Race, Humanity-as-a-Whole - that it laid terrific burdens on humanity as individuals. To benefit the monster of Humanity-as-a-Whole, they even fought wars - which killed off humanity, individually, at a fearful rate. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

He leaned his head in his hands, as if the burden he bore were too great for endurance. 'You are wise', he said, then raised his head and stared at her with unflinching hatred. 'I wish you were a foolish woman I could despise, damn you! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

My husband and I were very in love, and I had no reason to suspect that his interests lay anywhere else. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I never thought that I was very intelligent. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Grateful love and thanks. And last but not least to my elder son, David, for his careful preparation of the final manuscript. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Lancelot: Morgaine, Morgaine - kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.
Morgaine: Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears? ( ... )
Lancelot: No ( ... ) it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable - women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Beware what you speak,' said the Merlin very softly, 'for indeed the words we speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to pass, my king. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

For all the Gods are one God," she said to me then, as she had said many times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every priestess who comes after me will say again, "and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

You speak of being afraid. Yet fear is something you generate in yourself, from your mind's lack of control; and you will learn to look at it and discover for yourself when you choose to be afraid. The first thing you must do is acknowledge that the fear is yours, and you can bid it come and go at will. Begin with this; whenever you feel fear that prevents choice say to yourself: 'What has made me feel fear? Why have I chosen to feel this fear preventing my choice, instead of feeling the freedom to choose?' Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you ... [Y]ou have chosen to do nothing, so that none of the things you fear will come upon you; so your choices are not made by you but by your fear ... I cannot promise to free you of your fear, only that a time will come when you are the master, and fear will not paralyze you. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

A babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Arthur, their young king, like a hero out of legend. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

But a voice said within her, Now it is too late.
They found her at high noon, just as the sun came out after the storm, floating among the reeds of the Lake. Her long hair was spread out on the surface like water reeds, and Morgaine, stunned with grief, could not find it in her heart to regret that Kevin had not gone alone into the shadowed land beyond death. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I've been a schoolteacher. I always try to get the kids to finish talking before the next one starts. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

...it was an old saying: three could keep a secret if but two of them lay in their graves... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

But even the longest day wears to sunset. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I suppose all societies adapt their morals to their needs. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

And if the earth Gods wreak vengeance on the sinless and the sinful alike, then this further destruction cannot be punishment for sins, but is in the way of all nature. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Uther: "I wish you were a foolish woman I could despise, damn you"
"If your priests are right," said Viviane calmly, "I am already thoroughly damned and you may save your breath. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

For this is the great secret, which was known to all educated men in our day: that by what men think, we create the world around us, daily new. And — Marion Zimmer Bradley

God is one and there is but one God - all else is but the way the ignorant seek to put Gods into a form they can understand ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Goddess has a fourth face. It is secret, and you should prey, as I do, as I do Igraine, that Morgause will never wear that face. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Customs have no reason; they simply are. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Love is the only prayer I know. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

But I am Niniane of Avalon, and I account to no man on this earth for what I do with what is mine
yes, mine and not yours. I am not Roman, to let some man tell me what I may do with what the Goddess gave me — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Science fiction encourages us to explore ... all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

And the truth is only that we grow and die and wither even as this grass here. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Light flared through every limb, a force far too great to be contained in any human frame; but for that moment she was the Great Mother, giving birth to the world. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

If I, who am rhu'ad, do not break the laws," she said, "then no one will ever dare to break them, and our planet will stagnate in dead traditions. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Without a dream to light your way, the word is a very dark place. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

... but I believe the divine ones will send other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The symbol of the dragon should be always before them, that mankind seek to accomplish, not to think of sin and do penance! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

No man or woman can live another's fate — Marion Zimmer Bradley

They set down all their knowledge on bits of leather or waxed wood or tablets of stone and think that is wisdom. What good does it do a piece of stone to have knowledge? ... know it is the understanding graven in the heart that makes men wise. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Or is it only that there are so few of us, now, who were young together? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Men destroy only what they fear. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

All events are but the consummation of preceding causes, clearly seen but not distinctly apprehended. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

On one occasion I shared a bed with about seven other people, but we were all having a party overnight. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

the concept of monotheism — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Return again, return, life itself is calling you with all its pleasure and pain ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The man who feels fear without cause is a fool; but the man is twice a fool who does not feel fear when there is cause. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

It is hardly lonely in a nunnery, son, with other women. And God is there."
Morgause said, "I would rather dwell in a hermitage in the forest than in a house full of chattering ladies! If God is there, it must be hard for him to get a word in edgewise! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

If he knew, if he was told in so many words, he would have to do the conventional thing, he would have to express the conventional shock and horror. But knowing without analyzing, knowing in a place that went deeper than words, he could see it, know it, accept it. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

By what men think, we create the world around us, daily new. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures and fall into such terrors as this,' said Patricius sternly. 'Those who presume on their learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true interpretations.'
The Merlin smiled gently. 'I cannot join you in that wish, brother. I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Beat me instead," she cried, "It's not Darren's fault! I lost her, I let
her go
I cannot be free, I must be chained inside a house and
robbed of my hawk, you damned tyrant, but I will not have Preciosa
chained too! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Even fiction - perhaps especially fiction - has more truth in it than the author knows. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

it is the belief of mankind which shapes the world, and all of reality. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

A friend of ours has a hobby doing genealogy, and we found out that we were cousins in the ninth degree, that we had a common ancestor on the Mayflower. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Never name the well from which you will not drink. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

A life path may have strange twists and turnings, and we do not always end up where we intend to go ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

There are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Of all things we mortals are called upon to do, the most difficult is forgiveness; in order to truly do it, you will probably have to behave as if you already have forgiven for quite a while before you have actually done so. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The scandal's so unbelievable that I cannot repeat it here. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The truth is not so good a story. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I cannot regret it. They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I love this life on Earth, Morgan, and I love you with a love that is stronger than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it brings me back to you, my beloved! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

All the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world ... — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Lancelet's skin was so soft - she had thought all men were like Arthur, sunburnt and hairy, but his body was smooth as a child's. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

But the older priestesses had explained to her, as they gathered in the courtyard, that the Moon God was effacing the brightness of the Goddess, and she ran out with them joyously to join in the shrieks of the women to frighten him away. Later it had been explained to her how the sun and moon moved, and why, now and again, one of them crossed the face of the other; that it was in the way of nature, and the common people's beliefs about the face of the Gods were symbols which these people, at the current state of their evolution, needed to visualize the great truths. Some day all men and women would know the inner truths, but now they needed them not. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

If there be any Gods at all, of which I am not even certain, I cannot believe they would stoop to meddle in the affairs of men. Nor will I wait upon the Gods to do what I see clearly must be done - who's to say that the Goddess cannot work through my hand as well as another. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Will you walk the road to your destiny, or must the Gods drag you to it unwilling? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

But if men do not believe in more than one life, how will they avoid despair? What just God would create some men wretched, and others happy and prosperous, if one life was all they could have? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

For lo, all the days of man are as a leaf that is fallen and as the grass that withereth. Thou too shalt be forgotten, like the flowers that falleth on the grass, like the wine that is poured out and soaks into the earth. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

[T]he House of Maidens was for little girls whose whole duty in life was to spill things, break things, and forget things ... until they had spilled, broken, and forgotten everything they could, and thus made room in their lives for a little wisdom. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

For ever the world of Fairy drifts further from the world in which the Christ holds sway. I have no quarrel with the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny that she ever held power in this world. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The visible world was only an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, which the Philosopher sought to transcend. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

As life grew better, happier, safer, did it also lose some indefinable edge which made it worth living at all? — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Gods give of their best, not their worst, to men! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

The careful observance of discipline is the mark of the artiste. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

No house is big enough for the rule of two women. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

He was guarded behind a hundred fences of reserve and anger. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

You are sensitive - but make that your servant, not your master. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

This I have known since first I trod the path - a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine ... There is no one there, there — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Think not that you can direct my steps! If you come with me - you follow! — Marion Zimmer Bradley