Tanith Lee Quotes & Sayings

For me, everyone I write of is real. I have little true say in what they want, what they do or end up as (or in). Their acts appall, enchant, disgust or astound me. Their ends fill me with retributive glee, or break my heart. I can only take credit (if I can even take credit for that) in reporting the scenario. This is not a disclaimer. Just a fact. — Tanith Lee

Mirrors taught: Perhaps there were always at least two sorts of reality, what you credited, and what was true. — Tanith Lee

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer. — Tanith Lee

Men could not have too much. Ecstasy and vulnerability belonged in the same dish. The fear the cup would be snatched away was what gave the wine its savor and as Zhirem's cup was sure, so was his joylessness ... to die is a fear, but to live is a fear, also. — Tanith Lee

I see that. Where am I?'
'You are quite secure, Rachaela. You have all of us.'
Rachaela quailed. 'But you're all mad.'
Anna smiled her smile. 'What can I say to that. — Tanith Lee

Louisa beheld the grounds and house with the calm pleasure of one who has seen nothing, been nowhere, expects everything, and has little imagination. — Tanith Lee

As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm. — Tanith Lee

World's flying like birds; my car's in flight. The city lights are spattered on my windshield like the fragments of the night. And I'm in flight. The sky's a wheel, a merry-go-round of wings and snow and steel, and fire. We'll tread the sky, we'll ride the scarlet horses. — Tanith Lee

Now, writing every day, and being paid for it and encouraged to do it, it was as if, in the midst of the clich?d dark and stormy night, I found the magical inn, its windows golden lit, and Summer was due to start tomorrow. I can only work at one thing well. Deprive me of that, and my "back-up plan," even now, will be the empty, stormy, darkened heath
where, incidentally, even unpublished, somehow I'll still be writing. — Tanith Lee

It was then, so curiously, that Miranda held out her arms ... And Rachaela went into the arms of Miranda, and together they wept, ... like ancient sisters in a tragedy. — Tanith Lee

In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does. — Tanith Lee

Hatred and jealousy must find a tongue; only the creatures which never feel those things have no need to talk. — Tanith Lee

The guilty are always the most prone to establish complementary guilt, and the most unforgiving thereafter. — Tanith Lee

Pale beauty stands aghast," he said, "at the vulgar ugliness of men. — Tanith Lee

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. — Tanith Lee

There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water. — Tanith Lee

No one is ever ordinary. — Tanith Lee

She braced herself for the pain of the perfect horn breaking her heart. — Tanith Lee

Is any world quite sensible? — Tanith Lee

Go nowhere on a horse that fades, for your dreams will betray you. — Tanith Lee

People are always the start for me ... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead ... these are all people to me. — Tanith Lee

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote. — Tanith Lee

How massively the mountains stand, while low to the ground the sand blows. The sand blows on and on. And then there are no mountains, none at all, the sand has kissed and whispered them away. And still, the sand blows on. — Tanith Lee

When I write, I go to live inside the book. By which I mean, mentally I can experience everything I'm writing about. I can see it, hear its sounds, feel its heat or rain. The characters become better known to me than the closest family or friends. This makes the writing-down part very simple most of the time. I only need to describe what's already there in front of me. That said, it won't be a surprise if I add that the imagined worlds quickly become entangled with the so-called reality of this one.
Since I write almost every day, and I think (and dream) constantly about my work, it occurs to me I must spend more time in all these places than here. — Tanith Lee

Tales of heroes end in bliss. — Tanith Lee

I felt angry and silly in that feather-itch dress. I felt alone. But one always is, I suppose. — Tanith Lee

When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything! — Tanith Lee

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche. — Tanith Lee

The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar. — Tanith Lee

Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root. — Tanith Lee

I tend not to analyse my work, though I'm frequently intrigued when other people take time to do so. — Tanith Lee

I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen. — Tanith Lee

I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world. — Tanith Lee

I came up with a parallel Venice called Venus. set in a parallel Venice about 1701. — Tanith Lee

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it. — Tanith Lee

I was born in North London in 1947. I didn't learn to read until I was almost 8-partly bad schooling, and partly I suspect slight dyslexic problems. My father, driven mad by this, taught me to read. At 9 I began writing. — Tanith Lee

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure? — Tanith Lee

Don't ever," he said, "be afraid of me."
But I was. He'd driven a silver nail through my heart. — Tanith Lee

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. During — Tanith Lee

I am interested in most mythology. Celtic or Christian no more than anything else. I will admit to a pleasure and sense of hope in what I see as the basic teachings of Christ, stripped of the nonsense that has sometimes been accumulated about them and the embarrassing misunderstanding. — Tanith Lee

I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons. — Tanith Lee

I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps. — Tanith Lee

The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits? — Tanith Lee

No man to lord, no child to hold. — Tanith Lee

Whatever the hell I am, I am Me. — Tanith Lee

Would you like an interview for the drama, too?"
"I can't act."
"Everyone can act. We spend our lives acting. — Tanith Lee

He sat by her, watching every gesture she made, as if he would paint her portrait afterward. — Tanith Lee

I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it! — Tanith Lee

It came to me, as I walked, how bitter the irony of the Book had been which had said: Herein the Truth. For it had a truth of its own in its bleached barrenness. What was truth except something which faded, lost its shape, grew unreadable and indistinguishable, at last a blank page for men to write on what they wished. — Tanith Lee

It was the forest's fault. Those two handsome woodcutters. An evil place, the forest, everyone knew it, full of temptations and imps ... — Tanith Lee

Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do. — Tanith Lee

Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond
that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write. — Tanith Lee

Live and let love.
Love and let go.
Go live. — Tanith Lee

The Vazdru do not weep."
"Who weeps? Not I."
"Every word spoken was a tear. — Tanith Lee

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it. — Tanith Lee

A rose by any other name Would get the blame For being what it is
The colour of a kiss, The shadow of a flame. A rose may earn another name, So call it love; So call it love I will, And love is like the sea, Which changes constantly, And yet is still The same. — Tanith Lee

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work. — Tanith Lee

It was usual to be obedient to authority, to obey a legal letter. But Rachaela left her bills
unpaid until the threats began. She ignored the money-envelopes stuck through the door for starving
children and the sick. — Tanith Lee

Having told of so much beauty, how is it possible to tell of her? There are no words left on the earth in any tongue that will do. Such words vanished from the world when it shook itself free from the ocean of chaos, in a cataclysm that reshaped it like one of the balls small children throw in the air at play. — Tanith Lee

We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do. — Tanith Lee

Tanaquil gently toed the peeve. "I'll unfasten the window. Jump out to the lower roof and run."
"Stay and bite," said the peeve. — Tanith Lee

Though we come and go, and pass into the shadows, where we leave behind us stories told - on paper, on the wings of butterflies, on the wind, on the hearts of others - there we are remembered, there we work magic and great change - passing on the fire like a torch - forever and forever. Till the sky falls, and all things are flawless and need no words at all. — Tanith Lee

I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault. — Tanith Lee

Condemned and executioner are not coupled in a primitive rite. — Tanith Lee

The so-called Real World. Human misery and sadness. Blind politics and general cruelty. — Tanith Lee

Goddess," he said, "I would strongly advise you to continue this journey as you were - in your carriage." "Vazkor," I said, "I would strongly advise you not to advise me. — Tanith Lee

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood. — Tanith Lee

What I remember is impossible. Against the law of God.' 'Why should you suppose that? You must permit God to grasp His own law rather better than fallible man, who has perhaps misunderstood. — Tanith Lee

Azhrarn, Lord of Terrors, terrified. — Tanith Lee

I loved him, just for a minute. I loved him and I grieved for him and my pity was part of the beauty, before the shame began. — Tanith Lee

I hardly ever work from a synopsis
I find they act like chains. — Tanith Lee

Standing by the frozen glass, he stared down at the icy, barely lit streets running towards the river Seine, the bell-clanging local church, then to the sky like black lead. ("Israbel") — Tanith Lee

You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. — Tanith Lee

I do not think I was afraid. There must be substance to breed fear, and I was hollow. — Tanith Lee

Men are not the causers of history. History itself, by a pressure of events, causes men to resort to particular actions. — Tanith Lee

If you run away from trouble, it always follows.'
Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying. — Tanith Lee

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does? — Tanith Lee

Hope is a punishable offense. The verdict is always death; one more death of the heart. — Tanith Lee

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people. — Tanith Lee

Israbel smiled once more. It was difficult to take your gaze away from her mouth - unless you looked into her eyes; and then you could only look at those ... ("Israbel") — Tanith Lee

Azhrarn the Beautiful," said Chuz lovingly, "it is your beautiful madness I have come to see. — Tanith Lee

There's a saying in High Egypt: The sky won't listen, so complain all you like. — Tanith Lee

It's lovely. I hate it. — Tanith Lee

What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it. — Tanith Lee

I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death. — Tanith Lee

Yes, he was very dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than Vazkor, for his weapon was honesty. — Tanith Lee

She could not mourn. She could no longer weep grasping the essence of annihilation, she wished only to cease, to be no more, as if sunk in some profound sleep devoid of wakening. — Tanith Lee

If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete. — Tanith Lee

The kind of teacher who never learned anything herself. Or taught anything, except sarcasm or fear. — Tanith Lee

No one more cynical than an idealist. — Tanith Lee

Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain. — Tanith Lee

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests. — Tanith Lee

And their days make no story for they were good and joyful and without event — Tanith Lee

It was so useful to lie with the truth. — Tanith Lee

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable. — Tanith Lee

All the Scarabae - all but one - were crowded in the garden. They watched her. Their grim
old faces gave away nothing. Like elderly kiddies at a play they did not understand yet knew to be
important, they regarded her as she stood behind the gate.
Goodbye, she thought. Goodbye for ever. — Tanith Lee

Go nowhere on a horse that fades. — Tanith Lee

I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all. — Tanith Lee

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. — Tanith Lee

Pirates have always fascinated me. — Tanith Lee