Top 90 Quotes & Sayings by Tanith Lee

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

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.

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

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

No one is ever ordinary.

I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it.

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.

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

Pirates have always fascinated me.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.

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.

It gets cold in the desert at night, particularly up in the mountains; the stars hammer on the rock and strike frost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

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

The dictate of the light says: Know yourself and what you are. The dark replies, By all means, but then become afraid.

Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.

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

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

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.

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.

Your dreams will betray you. Go nowhere on a horse that fades.

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

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.

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

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

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

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

Men are not the causers of history. History itself, by a pressure of events, causes men to resort to particular actions.

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.

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

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

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.

Dawn rose from the desert and turned the river to wine.

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.