Jack Vance Quotes
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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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'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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Dango, Pume, Thwither: down with Visbhume’s breeches; let him hold his backside at the ready.
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'Let him talk as he will!' scoffed Zamp. 'His motives are not at all obscure.'
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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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I challenge Destiny, yes, but I do not leap off cliffs.
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A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.
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'A natural scientist, examining a single atom, might well be able to asseverate the structure and history of the entire universe!'Bah!' muttered Hurtiancz. 'By the same token, a sensible man need listen to but a single word in order to recognize the whole for egregious nonsense.'
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'Now it seems that Roger has once more taken up with Miss Roswyn. I can’t say that I approve, but he has not troubled to ask my advice.' She heaved a sigh. 'But I am sure that the world will never go precisely to my liking.''Does it for anyone?' asked Bernard Bickel with good-natured cynicism.'Probably not, and I must reconcile myself to the fact.'
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I suppose if you isolate yourself to such an extent, you more or less must expect a series of emergencies.
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He used a name for himself, true, but we played at Romance, and this is a game where truth is a bagatelle.
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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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These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.
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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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Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party-whether he realizes it or not-must always come out the worse.
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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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'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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'My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.'
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And I understand they are, in a sense, artists? That is to say, they understand the creative process, the sublimation of fact to symbol and the use of symbol to suggest emotion?
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Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.
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'If ambush I must, then ambush I will,' Aillas muttered to himself. 'A fig for chivalry, at least until the war is won.'
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I must cite an intrinsic condition of the universe. We set forth in any direction which seems convenient; each leads to the same place: the end of the universe.
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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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'Enter, my friend, enter. How goes your trade?''In all candor, not too well,' said Cugel. 'I am both perplexed and disappointed, for my talismans are not obviously useless.'