British author (1947- )
Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it.
TANITH LEE
Delirium's Mistress
It's lovely. I hate it.
TANITH LEE
Wolf Queen
The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.
TANITH LEE
Delusion's Master
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
interview, Innsmouth Free Press, November 17, 2009
I tend not to analyse my work, though I'm frequently intrigued when other people take time to do so.
TANITH LEE
interview, Nightmare Magazine, February 2014
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
Tabula Rasa, October 1994
And their days make no story for they were good and joyful and without event.
TANITH LEE
Night's Master
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
Wolf Star
If you run away from trouble, it always follows.
TANITH LEE
Wolf Tower
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
"Love & Death & Publishers", Locus Magazine, April 1998
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
"A House on Fire", Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead
Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.
TANITH LEE
Delirium's Mistress
Tales of heroes end in bliss.
TANITH LEE
Mortal Suns
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
Tabula Rasa, October 1994
Never be afraid of a cliché, if it expresses what you wish to say.
TANITH LEE
The Silver Metal Lover
Danger and anger are everywhere. Love is the rarity, the gem buried in the core of the mine, the outpost of God.
TANITH LEE
Metallic Love
The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.
TANITH LEE
The Silver Metal Lover
She had always been far too afraid of losing her husband, or more properly, the financial parasol North had maintained over her head.
TANITH LEE
"A House on Fire", Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead
Dawn rose from the desert and turned the river to wine.
TANITH LEE
Night's Master
Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote. 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
Tabula Rasa, October 1994