Tanith Lee

“She was what an aristocrat should be, porcelain and silk, unreachable, gracious, untainted by the dust of all this common death.”

“Pale beauty stands aghast,” he said, “at the vulgar ugliness of men.”

“Louisa beheld the grounds and house with the calm pleasure of one who has seen nothing, been nowhere, expects everything, and has little imagination.”

“I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all.”

“I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps.”

“But to Ezail, gifted with acceptance, it was only another facet of the riotous marvel of the earth. For all was marvelous there, was and is still, but humanity becomes inured to repetitive amazements - that the sun may rise, that a tiny seed may become a tree or a man, that life, coming from nowhere, sets us to moving like clockwork, and going out again leaves us to sleep. Or else, as then, takes us away with it, who knows? But we are used to it all, dawn and growth, living and dying. It takes a dragon on houseroof to wake us up now - and then, too. But to Ezail, all was wonder and no single item more than another: Dawns and dragons were one.”

“Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.”

“The guilty are always the most prone to establish complementary guilt, and the most unforgiving thereafter.”

“I will draw you back to me. You shall see. By a chain of stars.”

“She could not mourn. She could no longer weep grasping the essence of annihilation, she wished only to cease, to be no more, as if sunk in some profound sleep devoid of wakening.”

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

“He sat by her, watching every gesture she made, as if he would paint her portrait afterward.”

“She did this not out of fear of him, but out of pity. Because she had come to see the ultimate terrible truth behind all others. Which was that the stupidity and avarice and hatred of mankind had finally begun to make him also stupid, avaricious, hating, and cruel beyond reason. Even though he was a god, a god of love.”

“It's lovely. I hate it.”

“Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.”

“The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.”

“Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain.”

“Israbel smiled once more. It was difficult to take your gaze away from her mouth - unless you looked into her eyes; and then you could only look at those... ("Israbel")”

“Standing by the frozen glass, he stared down at the icy, barely lit streets running towards the river Seine, the bell-clanging local church, then to the sky like black lead. ("Israbel")”

“We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do.”

“Azhrarn, Lord of Terrors, terrified.”

“The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.”

“Azhrarn the Beautiful," said Chuz lovingly, "it is your beautiful madness I have come to see.”

“What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it.”

“The Vazdru do not weep.""Who weeps? Not I.""Every word spoken was a tear.”

“The kind of teacher who never learned anything herself. Or taught anything, except sarcasm or fear.”

“Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.”

“I hate the way, once you start to know someone, care about them, their behavior can distress you, even when it's unreasonable and not your fault, even if you were really trying to be careful, tactful.”

“Les Vazdru ne pleurent pas.- Chaque parole prononcée fut une larme.”

“When I write, I go to live inside the book. By which I mean, mentally I can experience everything I’m writing about. I can see it, hear its sounds, feel its heat or rain. The characters become better known to me than the closest family or friends. This makes the writing-down part very simple most of the time. I only need to describe what’s already there in front of me. That said, it won’t be a surprise if I add that the imagined worlds quickly become entangled with the so-called reality of this one.Since I write almost every day, and I think (and dream) constantly about my work, it occurs to me I must spend more time in all these places than here.”

“If you run away from trouble, it always follows.'Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying.”

“A rose by any other nameWould get the blameFor being what it is--The colour of a kiss,The shadow of a flame.A rose may earn another name,So call it love;So call it love I will,And love is like the sea,Which changes constantly,And yet is stillThe same.”

“Go nowhere on a horse that fades, for your dreams will betray you.”

“Go nowhere on a horse that fades.”

“I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death.”

“She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.”

“It was the forest’s fault. Those two handsome woodcutters. An evil place, the forest, everyone knew it, full of temptations and imps...”

“Condemned and executioner are not coupled in a primitive rite.”

“Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.”

“How massively the mountains stand, while low to the ground the sand blows. The sand blows on and on. And then there are no mountains, none at all, the sand has kissed and whispered them away. And still, the sand blows on.”