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Tanith Lee Quotes

English author (b. 1947), Birth: 19-9-1947, Death: 24-5-2015 Tanith Lee Quotes
1.
Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?
Tanith Lee

2.
The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.
Tanith Lee

3.
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.
Tanith Lee

4.
Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.
Tanith Lee

5.
We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.
Tanith Lee

Similar Authors: Charles Spurgeon Stephen King Winston Churchill Richelle Mead Jodi Picoult Francois de La Rochefoucauld Marianne Williamson Wayne Dyer Michel de Montaigne Suzanne Collins Leo Tolstoy Stephenie Meyer Jim Rohn Oswald Chambers Zig Ziglar
6.
The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.
Tanith Lee

7.
When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.
Tanith Lee

8.
I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.
Tanith Lee

Quote Topics by Tanith Lee: Writing Book Needs World Thinking Night Love Is People Real Dark Hate Wish Sometimes Dream Running Children Ifs Somewhere Else Fascinated Lying Chains Stars Intrigued Care Trouble Jobs Reading Men Trying Art
9.
No one is ever ordinary.
Tanith Lee

10.
Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.
Tanith Lee

11.
I will draw you back to me. You shall see. By a chain of stars.
Tanith Lee

12.
Never be afraid of a cliché, if it expresses what you wish to say.
Tanith Lee

13.
Flat or round, there has always been hate in the world.
Tanith Lee

14.
The so-called Real World. Human misery and sadness. Blind politics and general cruelty.
Tanith Lee

15.
I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.
Tanith Lee

16.
I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?
Tanith Lee

17.
We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do.
Tanith Lee

18.
Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.
Tanith Lee

19.
For me, everyone I write of is real. I have little true say in what they want, what they do or end up as (or in). Their acts appall, enchant, disgust or astound me. Their ends fill me with retributive glee, or break my heart. I can only take credit (if I can even take credit for that) in reporting the scenario. This is not a disclaimer. Just a fact.
Tanith Lee

20.
I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons.
Tanith Lee

21.
There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water.
Tanith Lee

22.
I must suppose that reading wonderful writers may, inadvertently, teach an avid reader a great deal -- not only about life and other matters, but about how to write. Therefore doubtless I have benefited from frequent immersions in the glowing genius of others. It would be nice to think so. (I do actually think so). But to improve my skills will never be the prompting force of my reading -- that's just literary lust.
Tanith Lee

23.
I simply write what I want, wish, long to write.... The state of human life and the god or demon within. The constant internal war that being alive can conjure.
Tanith Lee

24.
I hardly ever work from a synopsis -- I find they act like chains.
Tanith Lee

25.
I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.
Tanith Lee

26.
Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.
Tanith Lee

27.
In the greater part of humankind there resides an instinct for survival. It is this which can clutch at straws and effect a rescue from them. It is this which can, now and then, outwit fate.
Tanith Lee

28.
Im writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and Im very greedy, and I really enjoy it!
Tanith Lee

29.
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.
Tanith Lee

30.
Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.
Tanith Lee

31.
Ecstasy and vulnerability belonged in the same dish. The fear the cup would be snatched away was what gave the wine its savor.
Tanith Lee

32.
I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.
Tanith Lee

33.
As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.
Tanith Lee

34.
If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.
Tanith Lee

35.
It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself.
Tanith Lee

36.
World's flying like birds; my car's in flight. The city lights are spattered on my windshield like the fragments of the night. And I'm in flight. The sky's a wheel, a merry-go-round of wings and snow and steel, and fire. We'll tread the sky, we'll ride the scarlet horses.
Tanith Lee

37.
We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests. And that's where I put myself: as a storyteller. Not necessarily a high priestess, but certainly the storyteller. And I would love to be the storyteller of the tribe.
Tanith Lee

38.
The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.
Tanith Lee

39.
I began to feel lighthearted. Don't ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe.
Tanith Lee

40.
If anyone ever wonders why there's nothing coming from me, it's not my fault. I'm doing the work. No, I haven't deteriorated or gone insane. Suddenly, I just can't get anything into print. And apparently I'm not alone in this. There are people of very high standing, authors who are having problems. So I have been told. In my own case, the more disturbing element is the editor-in-chief who said to me, "I think this book is terrific. It ought to be in print. I can't publish it -- I've been told I mustn't." The indication is that I'm not writing what people want to read, but I never did.
Tanith Lee

41.
Hope is a punishable offense. The verdict is always death; one more death of the heart.
Tanith Lee

42.
If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete.
Tanith Lee

43.
Danger and anger are everywhere. Love is the rarity, the gem buried in the core of the mine, the outpost of God.
Tanith Lee

44.
Condemned and executioner with aren't coupled in a primitive rite.
Tanith Lee

45.
I came up with a parallel Venice called Venus. set in a parallel Venice about 1701.
Tanith Lee

46.
Oh, love. Love is best of all. There is no such total element, not even pain. Who has ever loved, knows this. I need not say more.
Tanith Lee

47.
He sat by her, watching every gesture she made, as if he would paint her portrait afterward.
Tanith Lee

48.
I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all.
Tanith Lee

49.
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.
Tanith Lee

50.
I was born in North London in 1947. I didn't learn to read until I was almost 8-partly bad schooling, and partly I suspect slight dyslexic problems. My father, driven mad by this, taught me to read. At 9 I began writing.
Tanith Lee