Jack Vance Quotes

The Vine of Life grows a single melon. The color of the heart is unknown until the rind is split.
Jack Vance
Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.
Jack Vance
What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace an egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of peace in this world of men.
Jack Vance
The Brinktown jail is one of the most ingenious ever propounded by civic authorities. It must be remembered that Brinktown occupies the surface of a volcanic butte, overlooking a trackless jungle of quagmire, thorn, eel-vine skiver tussock. A single road leads from city down to jungle; the prisoner is merely locked out of the city. Escape is at his option; he may flee as far through the jungle as he sees fit: the entire continent is at his disposal. But no prisoner ever ventures far from the gate; and, when his presence is required, it is only necessary to unlock the gate and call his name.
Jack Vance
Guyal of Sfere had been born one apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void that ached for nourishment. It was as if a spell had been cast upon his birth, a harassment visited on the child in a spirit of sardonic mockery, so that every occurrence, no matter how trifling, became a source of wonder and amazement. Even as young as four he was expounding such inquiries as: ‘Why do squares have more sides than triangles?’‘How will we see when the sun goes dark?’‘Do flowers grow under the ocean?’‘Do stars hiss and sizzle when rain comes by night?
Jack Vance
When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, "Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a life of satisfaction and peace. Do you recall this?""Yes, Grandfather.""The learning you shall have. You will learn patience and resource, the ability of your hands and your mind. You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done—so therefore you may never know life of peace. However, I guarantee you ample satisfaction, for I will teach you to crave the blood of these men more than the flesh of woman."The old man had been as good as his word.
Jack Vance
Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.
Jack Vance
Star-watching: at night the stars of Alastor Cluster blaze in profusion. The atmosphere refracts their light; the sky quivers with beams, glitters, and errant flashes. The Trills go out into their gardens with jugs of wine; they name the stars and discusses localities. For the Trills, for almost anyone of Alastor, the night sky was no abstract empyrean, but rather a view across prodigious distances to known places: a vast luminous map.
Jack Vance
There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasure, has no duration. Pride was an entity more persistent.
Jack Vance
How I hate you," he said softly. "If hate were stone I could build a tower into the clouds.
Jack Vance
Twango's hospitality, though largely symbolic, does him credit.
Jack Vance
Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all.
Jack Vance
Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese.Aillas said: 'Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I offer you a bite of cheese?''I care for no cheese, though it is an amusing concept.''In that case, allow me a moment while I cut a morsel or two for myself, as I hunger.''I have no time to spare while you eat cheese; prepare instead for death.
Jack Vance
I would offer congratulations were it not for this tentacle gripping my leg.
Jack Vance
One becomes sated with platitudes no less than honey, so that one often breaks another's bones in one's vexation.
Jack Vance
I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!
Jack Vance
I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.
Jack Vance
Good music always defeats bad luck.
Jack Vance
If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.
Jack Vance