Tanith Lee Quotes

If you run away from trouble, it always follows.' Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying.

We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do.

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.

No one more cynical than an idealist.

I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

Pirates have always fascinated me.

There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water.

I also love Disney, and will defend doing so, because there's so much in those films and I don't care if it's stereotyped.

The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.

Your dreams will betray you. Go nowhere on a horse that fades.

I hate the way, once you start to know someone, care about them, their behavior can distress you, even when it's unreasonable and not your fault, even if you were really trying to be careful, tactful.

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.

How massively the mountains stand, while low to the ground the sand blows. The sand blows on and on. And then there are no mountains, none at all, the sand has kissed and whispered them away. And still, the sand blows on.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.

When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything!

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

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

I was reading some complex books in my own youth-and no, I didnt always understand every word, let alone every concept-but I got the main thrust, which was like a lifeline in a fluctuating world.

I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death.

He sat by her, watching every gesture she made, as if he would paint her portrait afterward.

It gets cold in the desert at night, particularly up in the mountains; the stars hammer on the rock and strike frost.

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.

Condemned and executioner with aren't coupled in a primitive rite.

I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

I will draw you back to me. You shall see. By a chain of stars.

Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.

I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps.

It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself.

I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it.

As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.

Im writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and Im very greedy, and I really enjoy it!

I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons.

The dictate of the light says: Know yourself and what you are. The dark replies, By all means, but then become afraid.

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

No one is ever ordinary.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it.

If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?

It's lovely. I hate it.

It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.