Tanith Lee

The thought had taken hold: Only the best must survive, not a hierarchy of riff-raff. Gods, who had such power of life or death as he, must choose carefully. And one day he would have to choose: Shall I immortalize this one, or this? But not yet.

“What’s Hell?” inquired Wild-Eye. “You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?”

Superstitious, they did not go after her. They had a robber-god which they worshipped in a cave. His creed declared: ‘For every fifty travelers robbed and slain, let one go free. The gods care for excess in nothing.’

To be dead was a state which played odd tricks on dreams of vengeance.

The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned.

Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then.

The antithesis of myself. No fervor in him, no greed for life, only his ruthless craving to possess, which took no pleasure in possession.

This much poison cannot pour in one’s ears without it will leave some trace.

I have seen women who thought they loved me look at me that way, and wolves which were hungry.

I woke in the dawn. The plains of the Wilderness were exploding into light. It was the first hour of day, one of the two most beautiful hours of the desert, where sunrise and sunset are the queen and king.

The plague came to be called Yellow Mantle. Men must name everything, as if, by giving it a name, they will decrease the nameless horror they experience.

Power is the wine after which all other wine is mud.