Quotes by Tanith Lee - Page 2

Men are not the causers of history. History itself, by a pressure of events, causes men to resort to particular actions.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Men
Events
Pressure
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I also love Disney, and will defend doing so, because there's so much in those films and I don't care if it's stereotyped.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Care
Don't Care
Film
Ifs
Defend
Disney
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The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?
Tanith Lee / Writer
Humble
Priests
Pulpit
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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 / Writer
Cups
Wine
Would Be
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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 / Writer
Love Is
Needs
Pain
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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 / Writer
Selfish
Selfishness
Writing
Aware
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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 / Writer
Atheism
Scary
Writing
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Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?
Tanith Lee / Writer
Non Fiction
Genres
Perhaps
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People are always the start for meanimals. When I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings,immortals, the deadthese are all people to me.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Animal
People
Supernatural Beings
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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 / Writer
Men
Heroic
Men And Women
Pathetic
Strong
Weak
Writing
Men Women Men And Women
Beasts
Demons
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People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead... these are all people to me.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Immortal
Start Always Me
All People
Animals
Beings
Heads
Supernatural
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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 / Writer
War
Long
Writing
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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 / Writer
Comeback
Insult
Opinion
Writing
Complex
Fair
So-Called
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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 / Writer
Drudgery
Feelings
Manuscripts
Normal
Wish
Writing
Escape
Feared
Published
Submitted
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Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Deeds
Desire
Savages
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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 / Writer
Joy
Lasts
Lying
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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 / Writer
Blood
Butterfly
Towers
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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 / Writer
Essence
Profound
Sleep
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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 / Writer
Somewhere Else
Things I Love
Writing
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I'm 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 I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!
Tanith Lee / Writer
Extraordinary
Greedy
Somewhere Else
Somewhere
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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 / Writer
Fate
Now And Then
Survival
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I was reading some complex books in my own youth-and no, I didnt always understand every word, let alone every concept-but I got the main thrust, which was like a lifeline in a fluctuating world.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Book
Reading
World
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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 / Writer
Fire
Moon
Night
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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 / Writer
Care
Hate
Trying
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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 / Writer
Real
Real World
Somewhere Else
Writing
Somewhere
Belong
Love World Feel
Dreadful
Magical
So-Called
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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 / Writer
Father
Mad
Writing
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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 / Writer
Burning
Flames
Thinking
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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.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Blow
Mountain
Sand
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At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Actresses
School
Silly
Silly Things
Actress
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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 / Writer
Art
Needs
Tribes
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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.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Book
Littles
Special
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A rose by any other name Would get the blame For 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 still The same.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Flames
Kissing
Love Is
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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 / Writer
Fire
Horse
Night
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Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Driven
Inspiration
Writing
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I am interested in most mythology. Celtic or Christian no more than anything else. I will admit to a pleasure and sense of hope in what I see as the basic teachings of Christ, stripped of the nonsense that has sometimes been accumulated about them and the embarrassing misunderstanding.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Christian
Sometimes
Teaching
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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 / Writer
Heart
Real
Writing
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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 / Writer
Nice
Reading
Writing
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Now, writing every day, and being paid for it and encouraged to do it, it was as if, in the midst of the clich?d dark and stormy night, I found the magical inn, its windows golden lit, and Summer was due to start tomorrow. I can only work at one thing well. Deprive me of that, and my "back-up plan," even now, will be the empty, stormy, darkened heath -- where, incidentally, even unpublished, somehow I'll still be writing.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Dark
Summer
Writing
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In the usual way 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. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.
Tanith Lee / Writer
Jobs
Children
Stupid
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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 / Writer
Book
Thinking
Writing
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Tanith Lee Quotes - Page 2

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