Jack Vance Quotes

“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.”

For many years my nerves were like electric wires. Then I discovered the first axiom of human accord: I accept each person on his own terms. I keep a close tongue in my head; I offer opinions only when so solicited. What a remarkable change! Dissension vanishes, novel facts emerge, digestion flows like a wide river.

“I watch the sea and the sky; sometimes I wade in the surf and build roads in the sand. At night I study the stars.”
“You have no friends?”
“No.”
“And what of the future?”
“The future stops at ‘now’.”
“As to that, I am not so sure,” said Shimrod. “It is at best a half-truth.”
“What of that? Half a truth is better than none: do you not agree?”
“Not altogether,” said Shimrod. “I am a practical man, I try to control the shape of the ‘nows’ which lie in the offing, instead of submitting to them as they occur.”
Melancthe gave an uninterested shrug. “You are free to do as you like.” Leaning back in the divan, she looked out across the sea. Shimrod finally spoke. “Well then: are you ‘good’ or ‘bad’?”
“I don’t know.”
Shimrod became vexed. “Talking with you is like visiting an empty house.”
Melancthe considered a moment before responding. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are visiting the wrong house. Or perhaps you are the wrong visitor.”

“No,” said Travec, “religions, cults, rituals—forms of insanity—don’t interest me.”

“I admit to what may be an obtrusive curiosity.”
“The quality signifies an active mind,” said Reith.

I often reflect upon the word “morality,” the most troublesome and confusing word of all.
There is no single or supreme morality; there are many, each defining the mode by which a system of entities optimally interacts.
The eminent entomologist Fabre, observing a mantis in the act of devouring its mate, exclaimed: “What an abominable custom!”
The ordinary man, during a day’s time, may be obliged to act by the terms of a half dozen different moralities. Some of these acts, appropriate at one moment, may the next moment be considered obscene or opprobrious in terms of another morality.
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.

“I’m not sure. There’s not much I can do. Unless—” he hesitated.
“Unless what?”
“Unless I make an underwater survey myself.”
Damon was appalled. “What do you hope to gain by that?”
Fletcher smiled. “If I knew, I wouldn’t need to go.”

My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.

Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of life, is beautiful.

“Our ancient creed is correct. Rather than submitting to change we must divert the influences which conduce in such a direction.”
Ramus Imph listened with patient good humor. “The remarks of the sagacious Servant are persuasive, even though they fail to correspond with reality.”

A single question remained, the age-old cry of anguish: “How could one so beautiful be so base?”

The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.

I gathered that the old fellow suffers from some advanced form of senile dementia, and so perhaps his analysis is not totally accurate.

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

I can tell you this at least. The most convincing disguise for legitimacy is legitimacy itself.