Jack Vance Quotes
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Claghorn had long insisted that no human condition endured forever, with the corollary that the more complicated such a condition, the greater its susceptibility to change.
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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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What a strange and unfamiliar world if everyone were treated according to his deserts!
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Gassoon, for all his lore, subscribed to a common fallacy: he assumed that all those whom he encountered appraised him in the same terms as he did himself.
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'I think that I will not answer that question,' he said at last. 'I would create as many false images as there were ears to hear me.''Half as many,' Clissum pointed out delicately.
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Excellent; all is well. The 'everlasting tedium' exactly countervenes the 'immediate onset of death' and I am left only with the 'canker' which, in the person of Firx, already afflicts me. One must use his wits in dealing with maledictions.
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Speaking our language, you will understand us-and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.
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Your character, Apollon Zamp, is marred by a certain paltriness of spirit, a diffused universal distrust which I truly deplore.
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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.
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But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.
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'Down we go,' said Paddy. 'Now pray to Saint Anthony if you be a good Catholic-''I'm not,' snapped Fay, 'and if you'll give more mind to the boat and less to religion we’ll gain by it.'
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I'm only giving orders because I'm more efficient and smarter than you are.
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An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of after-thought.
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I am not called Cugel the Clever for nothing.
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'Let them scoff as they see fit! I will never compromise what I consider my art, especially for the sake of gain!''For the sake of gain I’d compromise the art of my grandmother,' muttered Zamp under his breath.
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If one basic axiom controls the cosmos, it must be this: In a situation of infinity every possible condition occurs, not once, but an infinite number of times.
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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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The history of man is a compendium of such evil. We are an evolutionary product, descendants of predators. A few synthetic foods aside, every morsel eaten by man is taken from another living thing. We are intended for murder; we kill to exist!
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The less a writer discusses his work-and himself-the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room; the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin; the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care.
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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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Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.
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'Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?' asked Shimrod. 'Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort.'
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'I'm sure you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.'Madoc Roswyn laughed a soft forlorn laugh. 'The sad truth is that I didn’t care-which may be worse.'
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I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.