Tanith Lee Quotes

He walked up to the high roof where the beacon was lit at night to jog the gods’ amnesia.

Some god must be laughing somewhere."
"Some god is always laughing. That is, if you believe in them, which is surely enough to make them laugh.

The moon walks east of midnight,
The sun walks west of noon.
And though I love you, sweetheart,
I will not sing your tune.

Sorcery is a strong wine, and you are drunk on it."
"Do not anticipate I shall sober.

She had no reason not to believe in the impossible. Desperation was always ready to pray for miracles.

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.

Azhrarn said: “The earth is dying. Man, your creation, is dying. Did you not hear of this?”
But the gods did not answer, or look at him, or seem to see him.
Then Azhrarn told them how the earth split and burned, and men slew each other under the goad of a sorcerous enduring hatred that fed and grew more vital on destruction. He told them everything and spared no word.
But the gods did not answer, or look at him, or seem to see him.
Then Azhrarn went to a single god...
“Men you made,” Azhrarn said, “but me you did not make, and I will have an answer.”
So the god spoke to Azhrarn at last... “Mankind is nothing to us, and the earth is nothing to us. Man is a mistake we made. Even gods are entitled to one mistake. But we will not perpetrate another by saving him. Let him vanish from the earth, and the earth vanish from the state of Being. You are the Demon, and humanity is your beloved toy, but we have graduated from such trivia. If you wish man to be saved, then you must save him, for we shall not.”

The sky powdered her cheeks with rouge, and the forest was mantled in crimson. Then the face of the sky altered, became that of a beautiful black damsel having no wish for rouge, but only for a net of stars and a piece of silver moon to hang on her forehead. And the forest mantled in sable, whispered with waters and the lyres of the grasshopper, and with the turning pages of leaves, and the unheard footsteps of unseen things.

Strange, that when we feel we understand all things, we understand nothing. Strange, that when we feel we understand nothing, we have begun, at last, to understand.

To be dead was a state which played odd tricks on dreams of vengeance.

Though they were beautiful, so are fires and leopards.

The gods’ inventions are notorious by their errors.

I said, “When you are on your deathbed, Erran, pray that you never meet me in the place you are going to.”

Well now," he said, "was I as good as you were when you were me?

He has been described as having a dancer’s body, a wrestler’s shoulders, a pianist’s hands, the legs of a marathon runner, the face of a young god, and the hair of a Renaissance prince. None of these descriptions seemed, to the off-hand observer, to be inaccurate.