Jack Vance Quotes
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I worked for half a cent a word. I'm not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things.
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I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.
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'It sees that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.'The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.'Are these not facts?' asked Joaz. 'How do you reconcile them with your faith?The Demie said mildly, 'Facts can never be reconciled with faith.'
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Enough of this intolerable inanity! I propose that such loquacity passes beyond the scope of the nuisance and over the verge of turpitude.
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'I distrusted him from the start! Still, who could imagine such protean depravity?' Bunderwal, the supercargo, concurred. 'Cugel, while plausible, nonetheless is a bit of a scoundrel.'
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We are sufficiently at the mercy of machines, Roger; if our music must necessarily be mechanical, then it is time for us to throw in the sponge, and abandon all hope for the future of humanity.
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There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.
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I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.
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'Tell me, then! What is so important?''Your life! I could not bear that you should lose it!''I feel much the same. Say on.'
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I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.
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It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and surveillance.
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When you demand the nature of my motives, you reveal the style of your thinking to be callow, captious, superficial, craven, uncertain and impudent.
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You emphasize morality. But the ultimate basis of morality is survival. What promotes survival is good; what induces mortifaction is bad.
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Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.
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'It is simple dog-eat-dog,' said Waylock. It’s basic battle for survival, fiercer and more brutal than ever before in the history of man. You have blinded yourself; you subscribe to false theories; you are permeated with your obsession-not only you but all of us. If we faced the facts of existence, our palliatories would be less crowded.'
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A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.
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The merchant voiced an inarticulate protest. Glystra glared at him, 'Do you think I trust you?''Trust?' said the merchant with a puzzled expression. 'Trust? What word is that?' And he tested it several times more.
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It had been suggested to her that the flaw lay not in the universe but in herself.
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Sorry, I’m not at home. I have gone out to my world Fancy, and I cannot be reached. Call back in a week, unless your business is urgent, in which case call back in a month.
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Ah! Five hundred years I have toiled to entice this creature, despairing, doubting, brooding by night, yet never abandoning hope that my calculations were accurate and my great talisman cogent. Then, when finally it appears, you fall upon it for no other reason than to sate your repulsive gluttony!
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He was neither lazy nor incompetent; he merely had occupational claustrophobia.
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Now was the present, now was the time containing that sweet union of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, spirit, will and imagination named Nancy.
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So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times.
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It was right and proper to exploit the excellences of the moment, but still, when conditions reached an apex, there was nowhere to go but down.