Jack Vance: Trending quotes (page 5)

“He must approach the subject critically, alert for contradictions, pedantry and vagueness.”

Jack Vance book To Live Forever

Source: To Live Forever (1956), Chapter V, section 2

“I challenge Destiny, yes, but I do not leap off cliffs.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 1, section 2, "The Inn of Blue Lamps"

“His brain ached with the want of knowing.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Dying Earth (1950), Chapter 6, "Guyal of Sfere"

“Poor Pymfyd! Your world is built of fear and dread! As for me, I have no time for such emotions.”
Pymfyd spoke in an even voice. “You are a royal princess and I may not call you a witless little fool, even should the thought cross my mind.”
Madouc turned him a sad blue-eyed glance. “So that, after all, is your concept of me.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

“I will say only this: persons who fear nothing are soon dead.”
Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 3, section 3 (p. 722)

World , Sadness , Fear , Fools

“What a strange and unfamiliar world if everyone were treated according to his deserts!”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Suldrun's Garden (1983), Chapter 25, section 1 (p. 270)

World

“I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 5, section 3 (p. 430)

Laughter

“A single question remained, the age-old cry of anguish: “How could one so beautiful be so base?””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 6, section 1 (p. 434)

Age , Beauty , Question , Cry

“Aillas groaned. “Destiny could never be so unkind.”
Suldrun said in a soft voice: “Destiny doesn’t really care.””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Suldrun's Garden (1983), Chapter 11, section 1 (p. 103)

“My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.”

Jack Vance

Source: Quotations and text from the Dying Earth novels, The Dying Earth (1950), Chapter 6, "Guyal of Sfere"

“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 Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 10, section 3 (p. 518)

War

“Claghorn had long insisted that no human condition endured forever, with the corollary that the more complicated such a condition, the greater its susceptibility to change.”

Jack Vance book The Last Castle

Source: The Last Castle (1966), Chapter 2, section 1

Change

“Yes, I realize that I see but a semblance, but so do you, and who is to say which is real?”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 1, "The Overworld"

“What, given the circumstances, would have been Emphyrio’s course of action?
Truth.
Very well, thought Ghyl: it shall be Truth, and let the consequences fall where they may.”

Jack Vance book Emphyrio

Source: Emphyrio (1969), Chapter 22

Truth

“He used a name for himself, true, but we played at Romance, and this is a game where truth is a bagatelle.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 8, section 5 (p. 904)

Truth , Game

“An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of after-thought.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 5, section 2, "The Bagful of Dreams"

“I suppose if you isolate yourself to such an extent, you more or less must expect a series of emergencies.”

Jack Vance

Source: Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973), Section 2 (p. 168)

“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 Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 2, "Cil"

Death , Affliction , Personality

“It is simple dog-eat-dog,” said Waylock. It’s basic battle for survival, fiercer and more brutal than ever before in the history of man. You have blinded yourself; you subscribe to false theories; you are permeated with your obsession—not only you but all of us. If we faced the facts of existence, our palliatories would be less crowded.”

Jack Vance book To Live Forever

Source: To Live Forever (1956), Chapter XI, section 2

Dogs , History , Falseness

“Roger tried to find out all about her: he wanted, in one brief hour, to make up for a lifetime of non-acquaintance, a lifetime for all practical purposes wasted.”

Jack Vance book Space Opera

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 4 (p. 30)

““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 Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 3, section 2, "Faucelme"

Thinking