Marion Zimmer Bradley Quotes

A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly

To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.

The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them.

Beware what you speak,' said the Merlin very softly, 'for indeed the words we speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to pass, my king.

Love is the only prayer I know.

I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself

There are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are!

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.

A friend of ours has a hobby doing genealogy, and we found out that we were cousins in the ninth degree, that we had a common ancestor on the Mayflower.

Magic is a matter of focusing the disciplined will. But sometimes the will must be abandoned. The secret lies in knowing when to exercise control, and when to let go.

By what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.

I never left you; I never will leave you. While life lasts, and beyond, I am here.

Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.

I have neither talent or taste for kingship, cousin. I am a warrior, and to dwell always in one place and live at court would weary me to death!

There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you.

Without a dream to light your way, the world is a very dark place.

Speak not against anyone whose burden you have not weighed yourself.

The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.

All gods are one god.

I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born.

Some knowledge and some song and some beauty must be kept for those days before the world again plunges into darkness.

Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you.

Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became.

And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea.

On one occasion I shared a bed with about seven other people, but we were all having a party overnight

And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference.

If you would have the message of the gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats ... It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

A woman is never free to bear a child unless she is also free to abort it.

... but I believe the divine ones will send other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones

No man or woman can live another's fate

For there is no higher religion than the Truth.

Never name the well from which you will not drink.

There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever.

Flowers and fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.

If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it.

Arthur, their young king, like a hero out of legend.

I've been a schoolteacher. I always try to get the kids to finish talking before the next one starts

What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?

If you listen to dogs barking you will go deaf without learning anything.

Morgaine laughed and mocked, but when it was a real trouble, no one could be kinder.

Light flared through every limb, a force far too great to be contained in any human frame; but for that moment she was the Great Mother, giving birth to the world.

The truth is not so good a story.

I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me.

Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust.

The Goddess has a fourth face, which is secret, and you should pray to her, as I do — as I do, Igraine — that Morgause will never wear that face.

But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.

I never thought that I was very intelligent

I wasn't a child at 13, were you?

All the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world.

The visible world was only an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, which the Philosopher sought to transcend.