Tanith Lee Quotes

Sometimes the communications between these two partners are so complex, and have so many permutations, that I can't follow them. Their relationship seems to be a little like chess, but without the rules.

Anxiety grew, the fear that always comes when an established pattern falters.

Spells are words, and words are merely noises. You are the sorceress, not your instruction. Don’t limit yourself.

The sacrifice lives, but the sun’s still shining.

Of the rest, nothing further is said, save that lovers love and live and, in due season, as all men must, they also die. And so with Ezail and Chavir who had been Sovaz and Oloru, Azhriaz and Chuz. For such was and is mortal life, mortal death. But for love, who can predict or measure, plot, ascribe, or declare an end. Love is one of the immortals.

In the partial silence, the ocean asserted itself, waves hurled loudly against rock, slithering back with smashed spines, then, healed by immersion, hurled forward again.

Having failed, do you accept failure, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn to other things? When night comes, do you accept the blackness of it, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn and wait for morning? Or do you go on striving to light a candle against that dark however often the wind blows out the flame, however often the night returns?

Rewa was brave. At least, she was thick-witted enough to be able to ignore personal danger to a great extent.

For you are mad, my dear, in following this vocation. Even your goodness is a craziness. But then, all the very good are mad, just as the very wicked are mad. In fact, there is hardly any difference between the holy and the profane, save in their ideals and their deeds. Both are fanatics. Both are ruthless.

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

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

Power is the wine after which all other wine is mud.

We are the sum of our achievements, nothing more and nothing less. The mountain road which led us here was built by a dead people none of us would remember otherwise. What we create is the only part of us which can survive, or has the right to. Man is nothing, except to other men.

Is it the regency you want, or me?"
"The regency. You, sweetheart, are the worthless dross that comes with it.

I cried out. I turned the pages, one after the other, in a frenzy. I could not believe what I saw, would not believe it. For the pages of the book were blank.
Oh, yes, there had been writing, this much I could see, but the inks had faded. Now there were only faint smudges and marks here and there on the yellowness. And I could tell nothing from them…
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.