Jack Vance Quotes

We’ll rack our brains and either solve your problem or come up come up with new and better ones.

The words must be spoken. The thoughts must be thought. The plans must be planned. The deeds must be done.

Reith for a space could find no words. At last he stuttered, “Have you no concern for evil deeds?”
“‘Evil’?” Baojian laughed sadly. “On Tschai the word has no meaning. Events exist—or they do not exist. If a person adheres to some other system of conduct he himself will swiftly cease to exist.”

The town’s lack of special quirks was almost a peculiarity in itself.

My fees are not too high. Your wage scale may simply be too low.

Ah! Five hundred years I have toiled to entice this creature, despairing, doubting, brooding by night, yet never abandoning hope that my calculations were accurate and my great talisman cogent. Then, when finally it appears, you fall upon it for no other reason than to sate your repulsive gluttony!

“I was trained in the old tradition! We found our strength in the basic verities, to which you, as a patrician, must surely subscribe. Am I right in this?”
“Absolutely, and in all respects!” declared Cugel. “Recognizing, of course, that these fundamental verities vary from region to region, and even from person to person.”

Alice put her hands on his shoulder. “And now, what of you?”
“What of me, how?”
“You’re so quiet and subdued! You worry me. Are you well?”
“Quite well. Deflated, perhaps. I have been deserted by my enemies. Treesong is dead. The affair is over. I am done.”

I challenge Destiny, yes, but I do not leap off cliffs.

“Is this the conduct of a ‘sly and unpredictable villain’?”
“Decidedly so, if the villain, for the purposes of his joke, thinks to simulate the altruist.”
“Then how will you know villain from altruist?”
Cugel shrugged. “It is not an important distinction.”

“Remember, my dear, Jantiff isn’t an egalist like the rest of us; he wants to do something quite extraordinary and individualistic.”
“Yes, partly that,” said Jantiff, wishing that he had never ventured an opinion. “But it’s more like this: here I am, born into life with certain capabilities. If I don’t use these capabilities and achieve my utmost then I’m cheating myself, and living a soiled life.
“Hmm,” said Tanzel sagely. “If everyone were like you, the world would be a very nervous place.” Jantiff gave an embarrassed laugh. “No cause for worry; there don’t seem to be many people like me.”

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

Deeming the unsubstantiated dogma of a localized religious cult to be an undignified and unsuitable base on which to erect the chronology of galactic man, the members of this convention hereby declare that time shall now be reckoned from the year 2000 A.D. (Old System), which becomes the year 0. The revolution of Earth about Sol remains the standard annual unit.

His decision was preordained, and derived from a perverse quirk in his mentality. At his deepest, most essential level, Hack knew himself for an insipid mediocrity, of no intellectual distinction and no particular competence in any direction. This was an insight so shocking that Hack never allowed it past the threshold of consciousness, and he conducted himself as if the reverse were true.

Discipline in itself is not a corrupt concept, only discipline that is imposed rather than self-calculated.