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Jack Vance
352 quotes
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And, stretching in languid warmth, she contrived to twist her body into first one luxurious position, then another.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not called Cugel the Clever for nothing.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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?”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There can be no doubt as to the facts as I have stated them. Orthodoxy derives from this axiomatic foundation, and the two systems are mutually reinforcing: hence each is doubly validated.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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." "Not in every aspect," said Cugel.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purportedly free was seldom as represented.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All is mutability, and thus your three hundred terces has fluctuated to three.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He indicated the pair of grotesques. "For instance, I have seldom seen objects so studiously repulsive as this pair of bibelots. Skillfully done, agreed! Notice the detail in these horrid little ears! The snouts, the fangs: the malignance is almost real! Still, they are undeniably the work of a diseased imagination." The objects reared erect. One of them spoke in a rasping voice: "No doubt Cugel has good reason for his unkind words; still, neither Gark nor I can take them lightly.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I challenge Destiny, yes, but I do not leap off cliffs.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I distrusted him from the start! Still, who could imagine such protean depravity?" Bunderwal, the supercargo, concurred. "Cugel, while plausible, nonetheless is a bit of a scoundrel.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is this the conduct of a ‘sly and unpredictable villain’?” “Decidedly so, if the villain, for the purposes of his joke, thinks to simulate the altruist.” “Then how will you know villain from altruist?” Cugel shrugged. “It is not an important distinction.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of after-thought.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 5, section 2, "The Bagful of Dreams" (first published in Flashing Swords #4, November 1977)
“The folk are peculiar in many ways," said Erwig. "They preen themselves upon the gentility of their habits, yet they refuse to whitewash their hair, and they are slack in their religious observances. For instance, they make obeisance to Divine Wiulio with the right hand, not on the buttock, but on the abdomen, which we here consider a slipshod practice. What are your own views?" "The rite should be conducted as you describe," said Cugel. "No other method carries weight." Erwig refilled Cugel's glass. "I consider this an important endorsement of our views!”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is useless, after all, to complain against inexorable reality.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I give dignity second place to expedience.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ildefonse said ponderously: "If your analysis is correct, we must undertake to secure the future against this pangynic nightmare.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Llorio, you are a woman of surpassing beauty, though you would seem to lack that provocative warmth which draws man to woman, and adds dimension to the character." The Murthe responded curtly: "The quality you describe is a kind of lewd obsequiousness which, happily, has now become obsolete. As for the 'surpassing beauty,' it is an apotheotic quality generated by the surging music of the female soul, which you, in your crassness, perceive only as a set of pleasing contours.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We need no chieftain; such folk eat more than their share.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morreion" (first published in Flashing Swords #1, March 1973), chapter 4
“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 (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I therefore suggest that in the style of the previous examples, 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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Enough of this intolerable inanity! I propose that such loquacity passes beyond the scope of nuisance and over the verge of turpitude.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You espouse a very popular doctrine, ethical pragmatism, which always turns out to be the doctrine of self-interest.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful?”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is an evil man? The man is evil who coerces obedience to his private ends, destroys beauty, produces pain, extinguishes life.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Revenge is not an ignoble motive, when it works to a productive end.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone is the same,” he told himself. “Anxious to arrive and, when they leave, wondering why they came.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are also those who, like the author, ensconce themselves on a thunderous crag of omniscience, and with protestations of humility which are either unconvincing or totally absent, assume the obligation of appraisal, commendation, derogation or denunciation of their contemporaries. Still, by and large it is an easier job than digging a ditch.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conjecture without facts was useless; he must deal with events as they occurred.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Deeming the unsubstantiated dogma of a localized religious cult to be an undignified and unsuitable base on which to erect the chronology of galactic man, the members of this convention hereby declare that time shall now be reckoned from the year 2000 A.D. (Old System), which becomes the year 0. The revolution of Earth about Sol remains the standard annual unit.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who are our basic enemies? This is a secret, unknown even to those basic enemies.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractors of the Institute scornfully paraphrase to: Somebody else’s ignorance is bliss.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty comes in often to drink. A spaceman, he claims himself, but as to this I can’t be certain. I have often declared myself a great lover. All of us lie, as much or more than necessary. ‘What is truth?’ asks Pons Pilatus, in the fable, and I answer: ‘A commodity as cheap as air which we hide as if it were as precious as yewl stone.’”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Destiny could not bring him this far only to deal him failure!”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A detached attitude toward the problems of others is not illegal.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And thereby hangs a tale,” as the monkey said while describing the cat’s rear-quarters.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Money lost, little lost. Honor lost, much lost. Pluck lost, all lost.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source