The Mists of Avalon Quotes

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“All gods are one god.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“Love is the only prayer I know.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“They have not forgotten the Mysteries,' she said, ‘they have found them too difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are, with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so, it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear to think of their Gods.'

Lancelot smiled bitterly. ‘Perhaps a religion which demands that every man must work though lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much for mankind. They want not to wait for God's justice but to see it now. And that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them.'

Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. ‘And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be–the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want–the kind of God they deserve, perhaps.'

Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“... all the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world ...”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“By what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“Never name the well from which you will not drink.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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 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 at the Holy Isle of Eternity or among the priests with their bells and their death and their Satan and hell and damnation...but perhaps I am unjust even to them. Even the Lady of the Lake, who hated a priest's robe as she would have hated a poisonous viper, and with good cause too, chid me once for speaking evil of the God.

'For all the Gods are one god,' she said to me then, as she had said many times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every priestess who comes after me will say again, 'and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and their is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within.'

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.

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, The Mists of Avalon

“I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures and fall into such terrors as this,' said Patricius sternly. 'Those who presume on their learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true interpretations.'
The Merlin smiled gently. 'I cannot join you in that wish, brother. 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, The Mists of Avalon

“What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom,”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“Lancelot: Morgaine, Morgaine - kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.

Morgaine: Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears? (...)

Lancelot: No (...) it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable - women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“Avalon will always be there for all men to find if they can seek the way thither, throughout all the ages past the ages. If they cannot find the way to Avalon, it is a sign, perhaps, that they are not ready." - Kevin”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“And as men believe, so their world goes." - Merlin”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“Arthur, their young king, like a hero out of legend.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“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, The Mists of Avalon

“And then a memory from Avalon surfaced in her mind, something she had not thought of for a decade; one of the Druids, giving instruction in the secret wisdom to the young priestesses, had said, If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message given you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon

“For this is the great secret, which was known to all educated men in our day: that by what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon