Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
“Men destroy only what they fear.”
“...gave so much time and thought to units - the Nation, the Race, Humanity-as-a-Whole - that it laid terrific burdens on humanity as individuals. To benefit the monster of Humanity-as-a-Whole, they even fought wars - which killed off humanity, individually, at a fearful rate.”
“I suppose all societies adapt their morals to their needs.”
“If I, who am rhu'ad, do not break the laws," she said, "then no one will ever dare to break them, and our planet will stagnate in dead traditions.”
“Darling, I wish I could help you. Try to remember this: to live, you need every experience. Some will come in glory and in beauty, and some in pain and what seems like ugliness. But - they are. Life consists of opposites in balance.”
“I love her, Rajasta, I love her too much to hurt her; and I can give her nothing! No vows, no hope of real happiness, only sorrow and pain and, perhaps, shame...”
“The Goddess has a fourth face. It is secret, and you should prey, as I do, as I do Igraine, that Morgause will never wear that face.”
“Lancelot: Morgaine, Morgaine - kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.Morgaine: Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears? (...)Lancelot: No (...) it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable - women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do.”
“What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?”
“What sorrow is like to the sorrow of one who is alone?Once I dwelt in the company of the king I loved well,And my arm was heavy with the weight of the rings he gave,And my heart weighed down with the gold of his love.The face the king is like the sun to those who surrounded,.But now my heart is emptyAnd I wander along throughout the world.The groves take on their blossoms,The trees and meadows grow fairBut the cuckoo, saddest of singers,Cries forth the only sorrow of the exile,And now my heart hoes wandering,In search of what I shall never see more;All faces are alike to me if I cannot see the face of my king,And all countries are alike to me When I cannot see the fair fields and meadows of my home.So I shall arise and follow my heart in its wanderingFor what is the fair meadow of home to meWhen I cannot see the face of my kingAnd the weight on my arm is but a band of goldWhen the heart is empty of the weight of love.And so I shall go roaming Over the fishers' roadAnd the road of the great whale And beyond the country of the waveWith none to bear me companyBut the memory of those I lovedAnd the songs I sang out of a full heart,And the cuckoo's cry in memory.”
“Sin is in the wish to do no harm.”
“Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.”
“Beware what you speak,' said the Merlin very softly, 'for indeed the words we speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to pass, my king.”
“You speak of being afraid. Yet fear is something you generate in yourself, from your mind's lack of control; and you will learn to look at it and discover for yourself when you choose to be afraid. The first thing you must do is acknowledge that the fear is yours, and you can bid it come and go at will. Begin with this; whenever you feel fear that prevents choice say to yourself: 'What has made me feel fear? Why have I chosen to feel this fear preventing my choice, instead of feeling the freedom to choose?' Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you. ...[Y]ou have chosen to do nothing, so that none of the things you fear will come upon you; so your choices are not made by you but by your fear. ... I cannot promise to free you of your fear, only that a time will come when you are the master, and fear will not paralyze you.”
“If he knew, if he was told in so many words, he would have to do the conventional thing, he would have to express the conventional shock and horror. But knowing without analyzing, knowing in a place that went deeper than words, he could see it, know it, accept it.”
“Customs have no reason; they simply are.”
“... and it seemed to her that time stopped, that her body melted into his as if she were without nerve or bone or will, and his kiss was like fire and ice on her lips.”
“Beat me instead," she cried, "It's not Darren's fault! I lost her, I lether go--I cannot be free, I must be chained inside a house androbbed of my hawk, you damned tyrant, but I will not have Preciosachained too!”
“And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference...”
“The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”
“I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.”
“The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them.”
“Ai miei tempi sono stata chiamata in molti modi: sorella, amante, sacerdotessa, maga, regina.Ora in verità sono una maga e forse verrà un giorno in cui queste cose dovranno essere conosciute”
“He said, and his voice was strained as if he had had a mortal wound, 'Gwenhwyfar-' He so seldom spoke her formal name, it was always my lady or my queen, or when he spoke to her in play it was always Gwen. When he spoke it now, it seemed to her she had never heard a sweeter sound. 'Gwenhwyfar. Why do you weep?'Now she must lie, and lie well, because, she could not in honor tell him the truth. She said, 'Because-' and stopped, and then, in a choking voice, she said, 'because I do not know how I shall live if you go away.”
“Love is the only prayer I know.”
“I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born.”
“Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a real trouble, no one could be kinder.”
“Even in her mind the words had the forlorn gallantry of someone whistling in the dark.”
“Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.”
“Dea è ogni cosa in natura è ogni cosa in natura è sacra. Guarda questo è il suo volto. Ascolta questa è la sua voce Lei è in tutte le cose belle e in quelle terribili anche”
“Sometimes the will must be abandoned. The secret lies in knowing when to exercise control, and when to let go.”
“By and large, the kind of science fiction which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at age with a changing world.But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science fiction are willing to wait to read tomorrow's headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we won't live to see. That is why I wrote The Door Through Space.”
“Mas existe uma teia... uma teia de escuridão tecida em torno de todos nós. E enquanto o tempo continuar a existir, nunca poderá ser desfeita ou destruída. É o karma.”
“Mas o caminho que é construído com base na esperança é mais agradável para o viajante do que uma estrada construída com desespero, embora ambas possam levar ao mesmo destino.”
“For this is the thing the priests do not know, with their One God and One Truth; that there is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you, and whether, at the end, you arrive at the Holy Isle of Eternity or among the priests with their bells and their death and their Satan and hell and damnation...but perhaps I am unjust even to them. Even the Lady of the Lake, who hated a priest's robe as she would have hated a poisonous viper, and with good cause too, chid me once for speaking evil of the God.'For all the Gods are one god,' she said to me then, as she had said many times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every priestess who comes after me will say again, 'and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and their is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within.'And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea.But this is my truth, I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.”
“There's no "magic secret"; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day—bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two.”
“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”
“Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust.”
“By what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.”
“Never name the well from which you will not drink.”
“I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me.”
“I never left you; I never will leave you. While life lasts, and beyond, I am here.”
“But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.”
“Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.”
“A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly”
“I have neither talent or taste for kingship, cousin. I am a warrior, and to dwell always in one place and live at court would weary me to death!”
“And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea.”
“... all the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world ...”
“I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures and fall into such terrors as this,' said Patricius sternly. 'Those who presume on their learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true interpretations.'The Merlin smiled gently. 'I cannot join you in that wish, brother. I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.”
“Si los hombres buenos como tú no quieren hacerse cargo -dijo Danilo-, ¿entonces quién queda, salvo los hombres perversos que no deberían hacerse cargo?”