Jack Vance Quotes

Events rush together. History occurs.

My point is this: no outsider can effectively organize a group of experts; they must organize themselves.

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

Ifness pursed his lips judiciously. “All folk, mercantilists as well as tavern-keepers and musicians, try to relate their work to abstract universals. We mercantilists are highly sensitive to theft, which stabs at our very essence. To steal is to acquire goods by a simple, informal, and inexpensive process. To buy identical goods is tedious, irksome, and costly. Is it any wonder that larceny is popular? Nonetheless it voids the mercantilist’s reasons for being alive; we regard thieves with the same abhorrence that musicians might feel for a fanatic gang which beat bells and gongs whenever musicians played.”
Frolitz stifled an ejaculation.
Ifness tasted the mug of green cider which Loy had set before him. “To repeat: when a thief steals property he steals life. For a mercantilist I am tolerant of human weakness, and I would not react vigorously to the theft of a day. I would resent the theft of a week; I would kill the thief who stole a year of my life.”

“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.”

The cantons of Shant were alike only in their mutual distrust. Each regarded as Universal Principles its own customs, costumes, jargon, and mannerisms and considered all else eccentricity.

Are musicians unlike other men? Beget and forget, that’s how it goes.

“It goes to demonstrate,” said Reith, “that you can’t judge a man by the table he sets.”
Cauch asked shrewdly, “How then can a man judge his fellows? For example, what is the basis of your calculation?”
“Only one thing I know for certain,” said Reith. “First thoughts are always wrong.”

Surveillance portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence.

“Do you deny the charges?”
“I neither confirm nor deny them; they are ridiculous.”

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

There is no reason why the project should not go easily and smoothly except for the innate perversity of circumstances.

They consider garrulity a crime against nature.

Where cowards never venture, heroes find splendor.

“Adam Reith, you have made a serious mistake.”
Reith nodded grimly. “Instead of an honest man I hired you.”