179 Quotes by Tanith Lee

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.

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

I loved him, just for a minute. I loved him and I grieved for him and my pity was part of the beauty, before the shame began.

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.

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.

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

When will they fight?” I asked. “Tomorrow. Daybreak. It is man’s work.” I laughed. “I too have fought and killed, Kotta. It is the work of fools, not men.

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.

It’s lovely. I hate it.