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'All is mutability, and thus your three hundred terces has fluctuated to three.'
Jack Vance -
'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.'
Jack Vance
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'Truth' is contained in the preconceptions of him who seeks to define it. Any organization of ideas whatever presupposes a judgment on the world.
Jack Vance -
Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.
Jack Vance -
He used a name for himself, true, but we played at Romance, and this is a game where truth is a bagatelle.
Jack Vance -
Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic!
Jack Vance -
The purportedly free was seldom as represented.
Jack Vance -
'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.'
Jack Vance
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Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.
Jack Vance -
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.
Jack Vance -
'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.'
Jack Vance -
'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.'
Jack Vance -
'Let him talk as he will!' scoffed Zamp. 'His motives are not at all obscure.'
Jack Vance -
I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.
Jack Vance
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Ildefonse said ponderously: 'If your analysis is correct, we must undertake to secure the future against this pangynic nightmare.'
Jack Vance -
'If ambush I must, then ambush I will,' Aillas muttered to himself. 'A fig for chivalry, at least until the war is won.'
Jack Vance -
He looked around the landscape. Drenched in the golden haze of late afternoon it seemed wonderfully tranquil and beautiful, though permeated with a sense of remoteness and even melancholy, like a scene remembered from one’s youth.
Jack Vance -
He’s like an imbecile with a pepper shaker; a little makes his food taste good, therefore a lot will make it wonderful.
Jack Vance -
I suspect that the word (art) was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.
Jack Vance -
'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.'
Jack Vance
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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.
Jack Vance -
'Here you see the pattern from which my great work is derived. It expresses the symbolic significance of NULLITY to which TOTALITY must necessarily attach itself, by Kratinjae's Second Law of Cryptorrhoid Affinities, with which you are possibly familiar.' <br.> 'Not in every aspect,' said Cugel.
Jack Vance -
The mind was a marvellous instrument, thought Shimrod; when left to wander untended, it often arrived at curious destinations.
Jack Vance -
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.
Jack Vance