Tanith Lee: Quotes about God

“A day out from the bay of Saardos, Drokler honored the brass Rorn god in the prow with a pound of incense.
The blank god mask stared back at them through the pall of sweet blue smoke…. It gazed in myopic stillness out over the long shock of the waves, ignoring their words, their presence, their costly offering.”

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 4, “Hell’s Blue Burning Seas” Chapter 15 (p. 208)
The Storm Lord (1976)

God

“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.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 6 (p. 52)

Men , God , Truth , World

“Naturally, the little wars were dressed up in ritual and significance. War spear challenge was followed by war dance, and invocation of demons, the one-eyed snake and diverse totems. I bowed to none of these, having seen early the vulgarity and impotence of the tribal pantheon. Generally men create gods in their own image.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

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

Men , God , War , Nature

“I would be a drudge now, among the tents, and I would kneel before the warriors, and run from them when they shouted at me. I would be a woman, as women were reckoned in this place, a half-souled, witless animal, created to bear and pleasure men: an afterthought of the god.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part I “Snake’s Road”, Chapter 2 (p. 323)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Women , Men , God , Pleasure

““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

“The rites were just the husks left over from deeper things, no pith remaining and no mystery, nothing to lift up the soul or go to the brain like wine. And, as generally happens, the more truth the ritual lost the more they bolstered it with significance. There is a saying among the Moi: The chief is clad in gold and purple, only the god dares to go naked.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part I “The Krarl”, Chapter 3 (p. 20)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

God , Truth , Soul , Wine

“Now there was that look of waiting, and submission—not the frenzy of the stadium, but the quiet sleep-trance of belief. Something stirred in me at it, as I realized I had them in my palm. I stood very still in my white and black, holding the copper things in my hands, and then I began to walk between them toward the god. And I laughed at the god as I went toward him. You—what are you? And he had no answer for me, for here it was the priest who was the power, not the god, poor empty stone.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Two, Part I “Across the Ring”, Chapter 3 (p. 155)
The Birthgrave (1975)

God , Sleep , Waiting

“He showed no fear. It seemed that, at the commencement, his race had known gods and no other. Gods had bound and ill treated and slaughtered and played with them. Gods were a fact, as were the sun and the shaking of the earth. Just another terrible reality.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book Two, Part III “The Island”, Chapter 3 (p. 219)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

God , Fear , Reality , Sun

“Anackire asks nothing because she needs nothing, being everything,” Raldnor said tightly, using a quotation of the temple.
The Ommos laughed gently and shook his head.
“Such undemanding gods.”

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 2, “Ruins and Bright Towers” Chapter 5 (p. 79)
The Storm Lord (1976)

God

“The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned.”

Tanith Lee book The Castle of Dark

Source: The Castle of Dark (1978), Chapter 12 “Lir: The Walled Town” (p. 102)

God , Pain , Fish

““I think Kathaos fears no divine forces.”
“Then he’s a brave man.”
“Oh, men make their own gods,” Yannul remarked. “I have a god with a fat belly, and a house full of expensive women to attend his every need, and I call him Yannul the Lan in Five Years from This.””

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 3, “The Meteoric Hero” Chapter 9 (p. 117)
The Storm Lord (1976)

Women , Men , God , Fear

“Tonight it was to be a play for aristocrats to watch, concerning gods and shepherds; it was the humble villages that clamored for princesses and emperors.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 9 (p. 84)

God , Princess

“Destiny or gods or fortune—whatever one is pleased or innocent enough to call them—they seal men to their decree.”

Tanith Lee book Quest for the White Witch

Book Two, Part I “In the Wilderness”, Chapter 2 (p. 240)
Quest for the White Witch (1978)

God , Men