Quotes from Jack Vance

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.

Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.

If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.

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

I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.

Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.

What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since whatever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapors rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.

You are young; you have hopes. One by one they will go, and nothing will be left but the bare fact of life.

We prostrate ourselves before the fish-god Yob, who seems as efficacious as any.

I become drunk as circumstances dictate.

I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.

I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!

Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic.

Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty.

Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life is a wicked theft

Light slanting down across Alode the Cliff illuminated a hundred forests; the irradiated foliage seemed to glow with internal light: bitter lime, intense gray-blue given pointillist fire by scarlet seed-pots, dark umber, black-blue, black-green

Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.

What is an evil man? The man is evil who coerces obedience to his private ends, destroys beauty, produces pain, extinguishes life.

Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.

The symbologist made a cryptic sign. "That remains to be seen, as the cat said who voided into the sugar bowl.

I am a dull fellow...my person reeks, my conversation consists of insipid platitudes.

I can resolve your perplexity,' said Fianosther. 'Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.' 'No need,' said Cugel. 'My interest was cursory.

I am not partial to folk who are grim and austere. I prefer fanciful folk who make me laugh.

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