Jack Vance Quotes
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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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Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.
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'I am more inclined to punish Hurtiancz for his crassness,' said Ildefonse. 'But now he simulates a swinish stupidity to escape my anger.''Absolute falsity!' roared Hurtiancz. 'I simulate nothing!'Ildefonse shrugged. 'For all his deficiencies as polemicist and magician, Hurtiancz at least is candid.'
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And, stretching in languid warmth, she contrived to twist her body into first one luxurious position, then another.
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Dango, Pume, Thwither: down with Visbhume’s breeches; let him hold his backside at the ready.
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Shimrod said: 'Once I thought of you as a child in a woman’s body.'Melancthe smiled a cool smile. 'And now?''The child seems to have wandered away.'
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There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
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He said that humanity in the main was crass, stupid, boorish and vulgar, and that I could learn at least this much from you.
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'Let him talk as he will!' scoffed Zamp. 'His motives are not at all obscure.'
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If the past is a house of many chambers, then the present is the most recent coat of paint.
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'You’re sure you want to look into these cognates? You might see things you wouldn’t like.''So long as I know the truth, I don’t care whether I like it or not.'
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Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.
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I still feel that we should act with restraint. It’s much easier not to do than to undo.
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'I learned a great deal,' said Beran. 'And then I lost all heart for further learning.'Palafox’s eyes glinted. 'Education is not achieved through the heart-it is a systematization of the mental processes.''But I am something other than a mental process,' said Beran. 'I am a man. I must reckon with the whole of myself.'
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'I was trained in the old tradition! We found our strength in the basic verities, to which you, as a patrician, must surely subscribe. Am I right in this?''Absolutely, and in all respects!' declared Cugel. 'Recognizing, of course, that these fundamental verities vary from region to region, and even from person to person.'
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I suspect that the word (art) was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.
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Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset.
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The purportedly free was seldom as represented.
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'I would define ‘avarice’ as a consequence of the human estate: a condition arising from turbulence and inequality. In none of the paradises, where conditions are no doubt optimum, does ‘avarice’ exert force. Here, we are men struggling toward perfection and ‘avarice’ is a station along the way.'
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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 challenge Destiny, yes, but I do not leap off cliffs.
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'You drink only sparingly. Is the beer too thin?''No at all. I merely wish to keep my wits about me. It would not do if both of us became addled, and later woke up in doubt as to who was who.'
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'When one deals with the Murthe, the unthinkable becomes the ordinary, and Zanzel's repute carries no more weight than last year's mouse-dropping - if that much.'
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Aillas replied that while King Audry cited several points of technical interest, and used the resources of abstract logic in an adroit manner, he had actually made no connection with reality.