Jack Vance: Trending quotes

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Jack Vance: 426 quotes3 likes

“When you demand the nature of my motives, you reveal the style of your thinking to be callow, captious, superficial, craven, uncertain and impudent.”

Jack Vance book The Languages of Pao

Source: The Languages of Pao (1958), Chapter 14 (p. 149)

““Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?” asked Shimrod. “Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort.””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 17, section 2 (p. 657)

“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 book To Live Forever

Source: To Live Forever (1956), Chapter VII, section 1

“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 book Space Opera

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 13 (p. 130)

“I'm only giving orders because I'm more efficient and smarter than you are.”

Jack Vance book The Five Gold Bands

Source: The Five Gold Bands (1950), Chapter 5 (p. 57)

“"The contingency is remote." (This is also a Jeeves quote in the PG Wodehouse Novels)”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

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

“Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 8, section 3 (p. 480)

“I am not called Cugel the Clever for nothing.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 3, "The Mountains of Magnatz"

“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 Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 5, section 1, "The Seventeen Virgins"

“"Very well," said Cugel. "I will ride with you to Taun Tassel, but you must accept these three terces in full, exact, final, comprehensive and complete compensation for the ride and every other aspect, adjunct, by-product and consequence, either direct or indirect, of the said ride, renouncing every other claim, now, and forever, including all times of the past and future, without exception, and absolving me, in part and in whole, from any and all further obligation."
Iucounu held up small balled fists and gritted his teeth toward the sky. "I repudiate your entire paltry philosophy! I find zest in giving!"”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 6, section 2, "Spatterlight"

“Control is necessary and even good—so long as I do the controlling.”

Jack Vance book Emphyrio

Source: Emphyrio (1969), Chapter 11

“I have seen all I care to see and heard rather more.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 6, section 1 (p. 792)

“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 Dying Earth

"Morreion", chapter 8
Dying Earth (1950-1984), Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

“"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."”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

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

“If the past is a house of many chambers, then the present is the most recent coat of paint.”

Jack Vance

Section 12 (p. 211)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)

“Damned meddlers. It’s hard to know when their curiosity is official and when it’s just curiosity.”

Jack Vance book The Five Gold Bands

Source: The Five Gold Bands (1950), Chapter 6 (p. 65)

“My fees are not too high. Your wage scale may simply be too low.”

Jack Vance book Showboat World

Source: Showboat World (1975), Chapter 12 (p. 132)

“He said that humanity in the main was crass, stupid, boorish and vulgar, and that I could learn at least this much from you.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 6, section 5 (p. 451)

“Die then. This is my cure for sore knees.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Suldrun's Garden (1983), Chapter 26, section 4 (p. 299)

“Ghyl laughed also. “If I'm too serious, you're too irresponsible.”
“Bah,” retorted Floriel. “Is the world responsible? Of course not! The world is random, vagrant, heedless. To be responsible is to be out of phase, to be insane!”
Ghyl pondered a moment. “This is perhaps the case, in a world left to itself. But society imposes order. Living in a society, it is not insane to be responsible.””

Jack Vance book Emphyrio

Source: Emphyrio (1969), Chapter 11