Top 100 Marion Zimmer Bradley Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “All gods are one god.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

2. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

3. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

4. “Never name the well from which you will not drink.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

5. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

10. “Look to the east,” she said, “for always, while the light dies in the west, there is the promise of rebirth from the east.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

11. “Darling, I wish I could help you. Try to remember this: to live, you need every experience. Some will come in glory and in beauty, and some in pain and what seems like ugliness. But – they are. Life consists of opposites in balance.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

12. “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...”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

14. “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!”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

16. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

17. “I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

18. “But even the longest day wears to sunset.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

19. “There’s no “magic secret”; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day – bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

20. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

21. “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.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

22. “Love is the only prayer I know.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

24. “The Goddess has a fourth face. It is secret, and you should prey, as I do, as I do Igraine, that Morgause will never wear that face.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

25. “If your priests are right,” said Viviane calmly, “I am already thoroughly damned and you may save your breath.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

26. “Speak not against anyone whose burden you have not weighed yourself.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

27. “Without a dream to light your way, the word is a very dark place.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

28. “I’ve been a schoolteacher. I always try to get the kids to finish talking before the next one starts.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

32. “Knowledge was like a mouthful of dust.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

33. “Will you walk the road to your destiny, or must the Gods drag you to it unwilling?”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

34. “A king must protect his people from outsiders, from invaders, and lead his people to defend themselves – a king must be the first to thrust himself between the land and all danger, just as a farmer stands to defend his fields from any robber. But it is not his duty to dictate to them what their innermost hearts may do.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

35. “I never thought that I was very intelligent.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

36. “I learned only so great a love of music as to be discontented with my own sounds.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

39. “Why should I waste my breath with a curse? I would as willingly bid you Godspeed to your own heaven, and may your God find more pleasure in your company than I do.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

40. “Yes, I am a sorceress. I do not think I am ugly, but you must decide for yourself whether I am good or evil. I try to do the will of the Goddess, and that is all anyone can do.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

41. “His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as the child in my own childish arms, heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had called impatiently, take care of the baby... and all my life I had borne him with me.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

42. “To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. “A babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

45. “I am dedicated to the belief that it is God’s will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

46. “For this is the thing the priests do not know, with their One God and One Truth: that 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, and whether, at the end, you arrive in the Holy Isle of Eternity or among the priests with their bells and their death and their Satan and Hell and damnation.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

47. “Or is it only that there are so few of us, now, who were young together?”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

48. “Want dat is wat de priesters met hun Ene God en Ene Waarheid niet weten: dat er niet zoiets als een waar verhaal bestaat.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

50. “For lo, all the days of man are as a leaf that is fallen and as the grass that withereth. Thou too shalt be forgotten, like the flowers that falleth on the grass, like the wine that is poured out and soaks into the earth.”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley