"Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?"
"In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does."
3 likes
Source: Tanith Lee (2003). “The Claidi Collection”, Dutton Childrens Books
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Tanith Lee
"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."
"She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood."
"Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable."
"We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests."
"The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it."