To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. I — Tanith Lee

"“Sorcery is a strong wine, and you are drunk on it.” “Do not anticipate I shall sober.”"

"No, she is cruel and pitiless and indifferent (which we have learned, through her teaching, the gods are to mankind—and indeed, have not the lessons of our lives ceaselessly informed us this was so?)."

"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."

"I do not know why it distressed me so much to see an animal die when human death did not move me. Perhaps because they were more beautiful, and there is no corruption in them, while in the best of men there can always be found some guilt or wickedness which seems to have earned him death."

"Anyhow, I arrived, and I did feel pretty weird, actually, as if I’d left something behind. My head or something."

"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."