Tanith Lee Quotes

I can't guess," said Olvia, "why he accepted my invitation. If I had realized he would, I would never have sent it.

Fashions change. Even in mythology.

For, though sometimes worshipping gods, the Yunea did not permit itself to stray too far onto the abstract path of sheer faith. An ambience of security was all the aristocrats required, a guarantee that fate loved them.

I would be a drudge now, among the tents, and I would kneel before the warriors, and run from them when they shouted at me. I would be a woman, as women were reckoned in this place, a half-souled, witless animal, created to bear and pleasure men: an afterthought of the god.

Destiny or gods or fortune—whatever one is pleased or innocent enough to call them—they seal men to their decree.

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

The grape of truth is often bitter, but not to taste it in its season would be to waste the vine.

I had made vows and to spare, but the present cannot be ruled forever by the past.

I know the old ways. There’s nothing evil there, only strange, and not even strange when you know it.

There is, too, a sort of relief in admitting defeat. Struggling to drag a mountain from my path, acknowledging at last the mountain would remain, lying down beneath the mountain, thankful for the shade of it.

He showed no fear. It seemed that, at the commencement, his race had known gods and no other. Gods had bound and ill treated and slaughtered and played with them. Gods were a fact, as were the sun and the shaking of the earth. Just another terrible reality.

It was as easy to be alone with six kin as it is to be alone by yourself, and maybe easier.

Oh, dutiful daughter," said Azhrarn. "You are to be a goddess somewhere, for I would teach this world the nature of gods."
"And what is their nature?" she said.
"Indifferent and cruel. And loving not mankind.

Anyhow, I arrived, and I did feel pretty weird, actually, as if I’d left something behind. My head or something.

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