Tanith Lee: Thing

Tanith Lee was British writer. Explore interesting quotes on thing.
Tanith Lee: 248   quotes 0   likes

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

Tanith Lee Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

Source: Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

Intelligence

“Strange, that when we feel we understand all things, we understand nothing. Strange, that when we feel we understand nothing, we have begun, at last, to understand.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Two, Part III “The Dark City”, Chapter 3 (p. 200)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Feeling , Understanding

“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)

“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

““But what am I to do?” cried the Prince.
“What you feel you must,” said the Theel. “That’s the only thing to do at any time.””

Tanith Lee

Source: Prince on a White Horse (1982), Chapter 4 “The Dragon of Brass” (p. 207)

Feeling , Time

“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

“I raised my arms as if in prayer and heard the mutter of response behind me. Then I scattered the dried grains, red and brown and black, and studied the patterns they formed on the stone ledge before Sibbos. This is not such a mystic thing. You see what it is sensible to see, or else you interpret what you see so that the meaning comes out as you want it.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

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

Study

“The Prince then remembered the white-haired Theel in the Castle of Bone, who had also been kind, if a little odd, and he wondered why such nice creatures always seemed to live in bad places with wicked things going on all around them.
“That’s easy,” said the girl, seeming to read his thoughts as the other Theel had done. “The bad places are where we can do the most good.””

Tanith Lee

Source: Prince on a White Horse (1982), Chapter 8 “The Tower of the Purple Knight” (pp. 231-232)

Girl , Reading

“Having failed, do you accept failure, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn to other things? When night comes, do you accept the blackness of it, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn and wait for morning? Or do you go on striving to light a candle against that dark however often the wind blows out the flame, however often the night returns?”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 11 (p. 102)

Failure , Light , Waiting , Night

“This sight was terrible, more terrible than words convey, for words are cowards as men are, and hide things as men do.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 15 (p. 133)

Men

“Who would dare invite such a smoke? To some it might be healing, but to others, bane. Breathed in at the nostrils, it seemed to fill the eyes and ears and brain. To a man who knew many things, it would reveal many more, to a man who knew little it would reveal too much. Its name was self-knowledge.”

Tanith Lee Tales from the Flat Earth

Tales from the Flat Earth, Night's Master (1978)
Source: Book 3 “The World’s Lure”, Chapter 4 “The Anger of the Magicians” (p. 163)

Knowledge