“If the past is a house of many chambers, then the present is the most recent coat of paint.”
Section 12 (p. 211)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)
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Jack Vance 213
American mystery and speculative fiction writer 1916–2013Related quotes

“There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.”

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/nov/09/economic-policy in the House of Commons (9 November 1976)
Prime Minister

“Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.”
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 230

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.