Tanith Lee Quotes

When a road is very dark it is hard to see the milestones on it.

Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?

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

Night, the dark widow, came walking on the hills.

Kernik had stumbled on an immutable truth, a truth older than the world. 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.

'Not everything that walks is a man,'" said the boulder conversationally, "'and not everything that lies quiet is a stone,' as the wolf remarked when the serpent bit him.

The sun in his golden chariot had driven almost to the last meadow of the sky.

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

Like most loners," said Moddik, "you carry the seeds of violent authority. Loners need to be bossy. They quickly learn it's the only method they have of shoving people off their backs.

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

In the desert, initially, everywhere is like everywhere else—sky, sand, mountains. So far, this was the extent of what I’d seen in my involuntary roost. Then the day began to ebb, the world turned to topaz and gold, and the color of the sky seemed to sink away into the disc of the sun. I found I really could touch the beauty of it then, as I had touched its beauty so long ago when I was free to travel where I wished, and the city still owned me. Now, tinged with my sorrow, the loveliness was bittersweet, but strong as wine.

It was, therefore, the sort of loveliness which is not perfect, but draws its charm from a measure of imbalance, which can accommodate flaws and make little of them, for a while at least.

Somewhere in me was a rod of steel to which I clung. I’d had a vision, as good as any vision given to any poet, sage, or prophet in the past. I wasn’t elated, I wasn’t confident even, but somehow, I knew, and with the end of doubt had come the death of despair.

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

They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful.