Tanith Lee Quotes

Naturally, the little wars were dressed up in ritual and significance. War spear challenge was followed by war dance, and invocation of demons, the one-eyed snake and diverse totems. I bowed to none of these, having seen early the vulgarity and impotence of the tribal pantheon. Generally men create gods in their own image.

As for their healers and their worship of gold books of old lore, there had been tribal stories of this, too, all nonsense, as anything chattered by the ill-informed must be.

The demons had invented love. There needs to be said no more.

This much poison cannot pour in one’s ears without it will leave some trace.

I had not yet learned the lesson that when you are forever telling yourself that such and such is worth the price, then the price is too high and has been paid too often.

But among the aristocrats whose existence could be lengthily prolonged into three or four hundred spans, boredom came to be the killer, a bizarre running down, a sort of decline and decay, nonphysical but fatal.

There were clouds like sharks with open jaws in the sky that morning.

Precognition or self-deception?

Nothing can be learned without some measure of risk, and, more vital still, of patience.

I see you laugh, and rightly so. What is this silly old fool rambling on about? Good for you. Never respect years, only deeds.

And now, Uastis, get up. This room is architecturally designed to please the eye, and your present position mars it for me.

I began to feel lighthearted. Don’t ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe.

It’s legend now, but legend is the smoke from the fire, and the wood that the fire consumes is the substance.

Finding in himself a profound strain of yearning, Pereban had mistaken it for religion. He entered the temple and dedicated himself to the worship of the goddess. Thereafter her statue—a roughhewn lump of rock with painted blobs for eyes and black wool for hair—so disappointed him that he kneeled to it, and beat himself regularly, every morning.

I think Kathaos fears no divine forces."
"Then he's a brave man."
"Oh, men make their own gods," Yannul remarked. "I have a god with a fat belly, and a house full of expensive women to attend his every need, and I call him Yannul the Lan in Five Years from This.