Top 22 Quotes by Tanith Lee

People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead... these are all people to me.

I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.

I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it.

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.

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.

As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

Pirates have always fascinated me.

The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.