Jack Vance Quotes

“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.”
“I will say only this: persons who fear nothing are soon dead.”

Evidently you do not trust me. This does not predispose me to trust you.

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

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

“What are the motives which prompt men to new enterprises? First, money, which in a sense comprises, includes, all of the other motives too. But for the sake of clarity, call this first, the desire for money, and end in itself. Second, there’s the will for power. Subdivide that last into, say, the crusading instinct and call it a desire for unlimited sexual opportunity. Power over women. Then third, curiosity, the desire to know. Fourth, the enterprise for its own sake, as a diversion. Like a millionaire’s race horses. Fifth, philanthropy. Any more?”
“Covers it,” said Zaer.

Vengeance is not the most noble activity, but submissiveness is worse.

Justice, a human invention, is as protean as the race itself, and varies from canton to canton. The traveler must be wary lest he contravene some unfamiliar local ordinance.

Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractors of the Institute scornfully paraphrase to: Somebody else’s ignorance is bliss.

She flushed, her eyes sparkled. “So—you laugh at me!”
After an instant of contemplation Joe asked, “Don’t you ever laugh at yourself?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Try it sometime.”

Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset.

If there were no such creatures as minstrel-maidens, it would be necessary to invent them.

Art implies discipline; the more excellent the art, the more rigorous the discipline.

“I consider myself a fortunate men, more so than most. I have often wondered why it was given to me to live the life of Kyril Fabrache.”
“These reflections, at one time or another, have occurred to all of us,” said Ifness, “but unless we are agreed upon a religion of gradated reincarnation, the question is ingenuous.”

I don’t care a fig whether or not you are offended.

You espouse a very popular doctrine, ethical pragmatism, which always turns out to be the doctrine of self-interest.