Jack Vance Quotes
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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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I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.
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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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'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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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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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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I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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He was neither lazy nor incompetent; he merely had occupational claustrophobia.
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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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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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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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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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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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In the end, death came uniformly to all, and all extracted as much satisfaction from their dying as this essentially graceless process could afford.
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'All is mutability, and thus your three hundred terces has fluctuated to three.'
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The person who, let us say, expects generosity from a bank, efficient flexibility from a government agency, open-mindedness from a religious institution will be disappointed. In each purview the notions represent immorality. The poor fool might as quickly discover love among the mantises.
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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.