Quotes from Tanith Lee

Intellect itself had become paramount, and God simply the clue and excuse for its dreams.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

A rose by any other name Would get the blame For being what it is-- The colour of a kiss, The shadow of a flame. A rose may earn another name, So call it love; So call it love I will, And love is like the sea, Which changes constantly, And yet is still The same.

Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.

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

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.

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 soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

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

Go nowhere on a horse that fades, for your dreams will betray you.

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 lovely. I hate it.

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

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

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 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.

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

Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain.