Quotes from Tanith Lee

His one weakness was that he was stimulated by his own fear, enjoyed, it, frequently sought it out.

Somehow, vampire or not, Shaina trusted Barbayat.

The young woman, who was no one's lady now save her own, pealed with a vibrant and wholesome mirth.

Hell was Electra, not a punishment of horror, but of pleasure which was horror.

Like many who tend and worship a child, thriving on the beneficient power this function gifts them, she saw the onset of the adult with misgiving.

Gods and angels are known for their transience, their infidelity.

A moment more and the cherubic pest had sprung out on her from a stand of mulberries.

He had a hard face, tanned but sallow, wings of black hair beneath a shaved crown, and a collar of swarthy gold set with gems. But his gaze also clung on Cyrion. It like a lover's look. Or the starving lion as it beholds the deer.

The Grey Lady said I would come begging for her help, and for her help I have come, though whether I shall beg is another matter.

It was his second day without water, a matter between himself and death.

Sick nearly to senselessness, yet he derived a peculiar and intense comfort from Estemba's supporting arm, the grey-gold hair against his face, the aura of tenderness and protection.

To satisfy the curious is not our fate. Our fate is darker and more savage. We await a savior. We await him in bondage.

She was troubled to find herself so joyous in the face of such dark tomorrows, weird bargains, terrible uncertainties.

You are already for something. Do you know for what?

Come now, Susina, remember you were always a saint when it came to a handsome face." "Not when it comes to yours, you demi-demon." "Ah, Susina. And my charming friend dying at your door." "I am not the hospital. I do not take the wounded in." "This once." "I have patrons and guests. You be circumspect." "As a monk, dear lady of delights." "Pah.

I have been called many things, never savior.

The young man in blue who had become his showpiece, a theater for Leopardo's passions, an irresistible echoing move also set hand to hilt.

I saw Volkhavaar who calls himself Kernik, he of the purple and the nails, with his pretty dragon, too.

A peacock, a leopard, a prince he saw himself through shining haze. Others could only pierce that haze and reach him by processes of rage or insult or rivalry or some deep and personal intrusion. He was perverse and knew it and gloried in it. Others feared him for his madness. Others fearfully admired him. Perhaps he himself was one of these.

All who ride with Volkhavaar are his, and your young man is his too, even with his black so-curling hair and his sea-smoke eyes, skpah! Better to go with the wolf and say 'Eat me' or to the bear and say 'Hug me' than love him.

Mercurio gazed at him with such innocent gentleness it was a pity to doubt it, but Estemba's eyes were clear almost to transparency, dangerous enough Leopardo did not try for him in that moment.

You have a cool effrontery, my friend, that is altogether delightful.

Behind his eyes, sluggish currents of self-dislike, guilt, and shame stirred cloudily.

The jawbone-I have a topaz pin for that. The wrist and skin-sapphire. I keep the diamonds for your eyes, my beautiful. But blindness is not yet. Nor death. This shall be a long game. Revel in it, my dear.