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No one more cynical than an idealist.

Tanith Lee

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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
Idealist
Cynical

More quotes by Tanith Lee

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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
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The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.
Tanith Lee
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It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.
Tanith Lee
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I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.
Tanith Lee
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Im a devotee of Dracula, which was a pathfinder in horror and vampire fiction.
Tanith Lee
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything!
Tanith Lee
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Danger and anger are everywhere. Love is the rarity, the gem buried in the core of the mine, the outpost of God.
Tanith Lee
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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
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Your dreams will betray you. Go nowhere on a horse that fades.
Tanith Lee
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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
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Tales of heroes end in bliss.
Tanith Lee
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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
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Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.
Tanith Lee
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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
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Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.
Tanith Lee