Jack Vance Quotes

The creature displayed the qualities reminiscent of both coelenterate and echinoderm. A terrene nudibranch? A mollusc deprived of its shell? More importantly, was the creature edible?

Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all.

I am not called Cugel the Clever for nothing.

And, stretching in languid warmth, she contrived to twist her body into first one luxurious position, then another.

Excellent; all is well. The 'everlasting tedium' exactly countervenes the 'immediate onset of death' and I am left only with the 'canker' which, in the person of Firx, already afflicts me. One must use his wits in dealing with maledictions.

"The contingency is remote." (This is also a Jeeves quote in the PG Wodehouse Novels)

Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.

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

I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise.

"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."

His brain ached with the want of knowing.

My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.

Guyal reined his horse and reflected that flowers were rarely cherished by persons of hostile disposition.

"What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously.
"I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue."

“You must save yourselves,” Rogol Domedonfors told them. “You have ignored the ancient wisdom, you have been too indolent to learn, you have sought easy complacence from religion, rather than facing manfully to the world.”