Tanith Lee: Trending quotes (page 3)

“She had never acquired in-between shades of character, had not had the opportunity. She had been utterly selfish, and was now selfless, because she had never become a whole person, did not like herself, or know herself. Nor had she ever gained sufficient wisdom to be properly horrified at what she meant to do. She couldn’t think that intensely.”

Tanith Lee book The Castle of Dark

Source: The Castle of Dark (1978), Chapter 17 “Lilune: The Lion” (p. 161)

Wisdom , Thinking , Personality , Selfishness

“Thinta flew safely, and I realized how much I preferred being with Hergal and feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright. Actually when I’m with Hergal I always realize how much I prefer being with Thinta and not feeling the blood drain out of my head with fright.”

Tanith Lee book Don't Bite the Sun

Part 1, Chapter 3 (p. 22)
Don't Bite the Sun (1976)

Feeling

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

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Two, Part IV “War March”, Chapter 7 (p. 268)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Fear

““What do I care for the god?” the woman suddenly screamed, catching up her dead child. “What god is he that takes away my son and leaves me nothing?””

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Two, Part II “The Water”, Chapter 1 (p. 173)
The Birthgrave (1975)

God , Dead

“What Is, is, what Was, was, but what is To Be, may be otherwise.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 20 (p. 170)

““When will they fight?” I asked.
“Tomorrow. Daybreak. It is man’s work.”
I laughed. “I too have fought and killed, Kotta. It is the work of fools, not men.””

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part I “Snake’s Road”, Chapter 3 (p. 333)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Men , Fools , Fight

“To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. If it teaches anything, it teaches you that you must not trust to the thing you know, that it is better to build on shifting sand than the rock which may confound you on the day it shatters.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part III “White Lynx”, Chapter 1 (p. 78)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

“A few old men began to say there had been a winter like this when they were warriors, and that it was a year of catastrophe and disappointment. But old men will ever spin this wheel. The summers were always hotter and the winters colder in the days of their strength, and the air thick with epic drama and portent.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part II “The Warrior”, Chapter 1 (p. 41)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

Men , Disappointment , Winter , Summer

“There is one sound way a man can bind a woman to him, the same way she will bind him, and with the same rope.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part III “White Lynx”, Chapter 2 (pp. 93-94)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

Way

“When you fell in the sea, you should have heard them cheer. I made them rope the yard and fish you up. I said a ducking in water washes the witch-skill out of a woman until next full moon, and it would be bad luck to let you drown. How about that for a clever story? They’d believe anything if you make it sound silly enough.”

Tanith Lee

Source: Short fiction, The Winter Players (1976), Chapter 3, “Red Ship” (p. 136)

Bad luck , Fish , Water , Sea

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

Tanith Lee book East of Midnight

Source: East of Midnight (1977), Chapter 12, “Sorcery in the Dark” (p. 129)

Personality

“White was the most fashionable color among the nobility and the rich. Because, of course, white is so easily dirtied, and only the wealthy would do little enough that it could not be spoiled.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book One, Part IV “Ankurum”, Chapter 5 (p. 108)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Color , Fashion

“I had not yet learned the lesson that when you are forever telling yourself that such and such is worth the price, then the price is too high and has been paid too often.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book Two, Part I “Yellow City”, Chapter 5 (p. 152)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

Learning

“This was the custom of the tribes, and perhaps, in the fogs of their pasts, the scheme had had its reasons. Yet like many of their ways, only the peel remained, the fruit was long gone.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part I “The Krarl”, Chapter 4 (p. 31)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

Way , Past

“Woana was the most talented, amazing and prodigious human in the world, and the most beautiful too. For Woana, if she had summoned them, those bright eyes in the sky would have danced down to earth; but naturally Woana was far too sophisticated to stoop to such a thing. Woana was, in fact, unrivalled, peerless. The reason being that Mitz belonged to her, and Mitz’s feline ego would never consider that anyone, but the most sublime, could have acquired her own exceptional self.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 17 (p. 144)

World , Beauty , Nature , Dance

“We should go and ask the princess for help. She seems very nice, and she’s much too beautiful to be unkind.”

Tanith Lee book The Dragon Hoard

Source: The Dragon Hoard (1971), Chapter 7 (p. 110)

Beauty , Help , Princess

“Uasti was a good teacher,” he said. “She made you look a little way into yourself, see what you could become.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part III “Inside the Hollow Star”, Chapter 5 (p. 402)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Way , Teachers

“Don’t judge yourself,” he said. “None of us are ever good at it.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part III “Inside the Hollow Star”, Chapter 5 (p. 402)
The Birthgrave (1975)

“Men think for themselves when they’re men.”

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 6, “Sunrise” Chapter 25 (p. 343)
The Storm Lord (1976)

Men , Thinking

““What’s Hell?” inquired Wild-Eye. “You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?””

Tanith Lee book The Castle of Dark

Part 4 “The Witch Hunt” (p. 139)
The Castle of Dark (1978)

Hell