Jack Vance Quotes

I suppose if you isolate yourself to such an extent, you more or less must expect a series of emergencies.

The life we’ve been leading couldn’t last forever. It’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

If the dictators and militarists who used to start wars had to earn by manual labor what their wars cost, there would have been very few wars.

Who is seducing whom? If we are working to the same ends, there is no need for so many cross-purposes.

"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."

“Why does a chicken cross a road?”
“Presumably the motivations and restraints in reference to the prospective action settle into an equilibrium which prompts the motion rather than the stasis.”

“And thereby hangs a tale,” as the monkey said while describing the cat’s rear-quarters.

What good is notoriety if your friends are unable to profit from it?

The seconds marched past, traversing that mysterious boundary which separates future from past.

Aillas groaned. “Destiny could never be so unkind.”
Suldrun said in a soft voice: “Destiny doesn’t really care.”

There are also those who, like the author, ensconce themselves on a thunderous crag of omniscience, and with protestations of humility which are either unconvincing or totally absent, assume the obligation of appraisal, commendation, derogation or denunciation of their contemporaries. Still, by and large it is an easier job than digging a ditch.

“We are supposed to set you a good example,” said Devonet. “As a start, I will point out that a lady of refinement would not wish to be found so high in a tree.”
“Then I am a lady of refinement well and truly,” said Madouc, “since I did not wish to be found.”

“The burglar suffered a harsh fate,” Frolitz told Etzwane.” The lesson to be learned is this: Never commit an unlawful act. Especially, never steal; when you take a man’s property, your life becomes forfeit, as has just been demonstrated.”
Loy rubbed his chin with uneasy fingers. “In a sense, the penalty seems extreme. The burglar took goods but lost his life. These are the laws of Elphine which the Faceless Man correctly enforced—but should a bagful of goods and a man’s life weigh so evenly on the balance?”
The white-haired stranger offered his opinion. “Why should it be otherwise? You ignore a crucial factor in the situation. Property and life are not incommensurable, when property is measured in terms of human toil. Essentially property is life; it is that proportion of life which an individual has expended to gain the property. When a thief steals property, he steals life. Each act of pillage therefore becomes a small murder.”

“I know the feeling,” said Lanarck. “I’ve had my own troubles with the scoundrels. The only good bursar is a dead bursar.”

I have much to say about the world, but every year the compulsion dwindles. Let them live and die; it is all one to me.