Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tanith Lee
Age: 67 †
Born: 1947
Born: September 19
Died: 2015
Died: May 24
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
London
England
Esther Garber
Judas Garbah
Lying
Season
Lasts
Seasons
Last
Merely
Cannot
Lies
Become
Habit
Certain
Beyond
Even
Joy
Mortality
Would
Knowledge
Bitterness

More quotes by Tanith Lee

Image
When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything!
Tanith Lee
Image
It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.
Tanith Lee
Image
It was so useful to lie with the truth.
Tanith Lee
Image
Tales of heroes end in bliss.
Tanith Lee
Image
Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.
Tanith Lee
Image
We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do.
Tanith Lee
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.
Tanith Lee
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.
Tanith Lee
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.
Tanith Lee
Image
The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?
Tanith Lee
Image
I came up with a parallel Venice called Venus. set in a parallel Venice about 1701.
Tanith Lee
Image
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