Tanith Lee on Life

"Such is the civilizing effect of city life upon men. It kills the instincts and replaces them with extended noses."

"A man hunted only for food or clothing or in self-defense. It was another mark of the effete and the sadistic to take life as a sport."

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

"Far too soon a man is in his grave, and how small are the hurricanes and mountains of his life—vengeance, love, might, and conquest—compared to that tiny heap of bone dust at its end."

"At some point, Dekteon saw, his own world had come close to such a religion, where women ruled and men died—but the road had taken a different turning. Now the hints of the ancient mystery remained only in songs. It was the men who were the masters. Maybe not for the better, and not for the worse, either. But all this was unimportant."

"I raised my arms as if in prayer and heard the mutter of response behind me. Then I scattered the dried grains, red and brown and black, and studied the patterns they formed on the stone ledge before Sibbos. This is not such a mystic thing. You see what it is sensible to see, or else you interpret what you see so that the meaning comes out as you want it."