Marion Zimmer Bradley Quotes

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

To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.

The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them.

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.

Love is the only prayer I know.

I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself

There are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are!

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.

A friend of ours has a hobby doing genealogy, and we found out that we were cousins in the ninth degree, that we had a common ancestor on the Mayflower.

Magic is a matter of focusing the disciplined will. But sometimes the will must be abandoned. The secret lies in knowing when to exercise control, and when to let go.

By what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.

I never left you; I never will leave you. While life lasts, and beyond, I am here.

Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.

There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you.

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!

Without a dream to light your way, the world is a very dark place.

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.

The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.

Speak not against anyone whose burden you have not weighed yourself.

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.

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.

All gods are one god.

[T]he House of Maidens was for little girls whose whole duty in life was to spill things, break things, and forget things . . . until they had spilled, broken, and forgotten everything they could, and thus made room in their lives for a little wisdom.

We were discussing civilization and the fact that young men among the Greeks at that time were idiots and uneducated, so the men had emotional and friendly relationships with members of their own sex

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.

If you would have the message of the gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats ... It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

From these Christians who came to [Avalon] to escape the bigotry of their own kind I learned something, at last, of the Nazarene, the carpenter's son who had attained Godhead in his own life and preached a rule of tolerance; and so I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his.

Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became.

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.

On one occasion I shared a bed with about seven other people, but we were all having a party overnight

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.

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.

A babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain.

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.

Some knowledge and some song and some beauty must be kept for those days before the world again plunges into darkness.

There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever.

A woman is never free to bear a child unless she is also free to abort it.

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.

No man or woman can live another's fate

Never name the well from which you will not drink.

For there is no higher religion than the Truth.

... but I believe the divine ones will send other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones

Flowers and fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.

If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it.

Science fiction encourages us to explore... all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision.

Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust.

The Goddess has a fourth face, which is secret, and you should pray to her, as I do — as I do, Igraine — that Morgause will never wear that face.

But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.

I never thought that I was very intelligent

I've been a schoolteacher. I always try to get the kids to finish talking before the next one starts