Jack Vance Quotes
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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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A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.
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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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The creature displayed the qualities reminiscent of both coelenterate and echinoderm. A terrene nudibranch? A mollusc deprived of its shell? More importantly, was the creature edible?
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Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.
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His brain ached with the want of knowing.
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I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise.
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He’s like an imbecile with a pepper shaker; a little makes his food taste good, therefore a lot will make it wonderful.
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A single question remained, the age-old cry of anguish: 'How could one so beautiful be so base?'
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'We are supposed to set you a good example,' said Devonet. 'As a start, I will point out that a lady of refinement would not wish to be found so high in a tree.''Then I am a lady of refinement well and truly,' said Madouc, 'since I did not wish to be found.'
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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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'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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He adjudicated the case in a manner I still find perplexing, but which must have been equitable, since it pleased no one.
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Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.
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Damned meddlers. It’s hard to know when their curiosity is official and when it’s just curiosity.
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The town’s lack of special quirks was almost a peculiarity in itself.
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The mind was a marvellous instrument, thought Shimrod; when left to wander untended, it often arrived at curious destinations.
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The life we’ve been leading couldn’t last forever. It’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.
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'My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.'
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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.'
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Beauty compelled admiration and erotic yearning; such was its organic function. But never by itself could it command love.
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'At Gundar we conceive 'innocence' as a positive quality, not merely an insipid absence of guilt,' stated the Nolde. 'We are not the fools that certain untidy ruffians might suppose.'
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He must approach the subject critically, alert for contradictions, pedantry and vagueness.
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I have seen all I care to see and heard rather more.