Jack Vance: Use

“In measured tones he answered Madouc: “Your condition lacks dignity; you bring ridicule upon us all.”
Madouc gave a stony shrug. “If you do not like what you see, look elsewhere.””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 9, section 4 (p. 928)

““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 Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 6, section 4 (p. 447)

Drink , Beer

“Aillas replied that while King Audry cited several points of technical interest, and used the resources of abstract logic in an adroit manner, he had actually made no connection with reality.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 16, section 2 (p. 626)

Reality

“We are sufficiently at the mercy of machines, Roger; if our music must necessarily be mechanical, then it is time for us to throw in the sponge, and abandon all hope for the future of humanity.”

Jack Vance book Space Opera

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 4 (p. 31)

Hope , Music , Time , Future

“I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.”

Jack Vance

Section 3 (p. 169)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)

Secret , Home , Mathematics , Effort

“The person who, let us say, expects generosity from a bank, efficient flexibility from a government agency, open-mindedness from a religious institution will be disappointed. In each purview the notions represent immorality. The poor fool might as quickly discover love among the mantises.”

Jack Vance book The Book of Dreams

Quotations and text from the Demon Princes novels, The Book of Dreams

Love , Fools , Disappointment , Personality

“Speaking our language, you will understand us—and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.”

Jack Vance book The Languages of Pao

Source: The Languages of Pao (1958), Chapter 8 (p. 64)

Understanding , Thinking

“Consider the human mind! It is capable of amazing feats when used properly. Conversely, without exercise it atrophies to a lump of gray-yellow fat.”

Jack Vance book Showboat World

Source: Showboat World (1975), Chapter 7 (p. 83)

Exercises

“Humanity is old, civilization is new: the mesh of cogs is by no means smooth—and this is as it should be. Never should a man enter a building of glass or metal, or a spaceship, or a submarine, without a small shock of astonishment; never should he avoid an act of passion without a small sense of effort…. We of the Institute receive an intensive historical inculcation; we know the men of the past, and we have projected dozens of possible future variations, which, without exception, are repulsive. Man, as he exists now, with all his faults and vices, a thousand gloriously irrational compromises between two thousand sterile absolute—is optimal. Or so it seems to us who are men.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Killing Machine (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 179)

Men , Optimism , Sense , Effort

“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?”

Jack Vance book Space Opera

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 8 (p. 65)

Understanding , Sense

“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

“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

“"What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously.
"I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue."”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

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

Question

“My great pleasure is creation—of this I never tire. Some of my guests have complained of a gentle melancholy which hangs in the air; I agree that the mood exists. The explanation, I believe, arises from the fugacity of beauty, the tragic pavanne to which all of us step.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 12 (p. 415)

Pleasure , Beauty , Mood

“There is too much knowledge already in the world; we use facts as crutches, to the impoverishment of our senses. Facts are falsehoods; logic is deceit. I know a single system of communication: the declaiming of poetry.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 5 (p. 343)

World , Sense , Knowledge , Communication

“You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful?”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 27)

Evil , Men

“You used the word ‘civilization,’ which means a set of abstractions, symbols, conventions. Experience tends to be vicarious; emotions are predigested and electrical; ideas become more real than things.”

Jack Vance book The Gray Prince

Source: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 4 (p. 48)

Idea