Quotes from Jack Vance

I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

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

I never worked in an office in my life.

The universe is eight billion years old, the last two billion of which have produced intelligent life. During this time not one hour of absolute equity has prevailed.

But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

Beauty compelled admiration and erotic yearning; such was its organic function. But never by itself could it command love.

There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

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.

Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.

I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough.

I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet.

I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.

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

The world is a place of marvels

I live in a constant flux; I am unable to make fixed plans.

The forest of Tantrevalles shades a deep dank soil; somewhere under this mold lies the carcass of a snake which in better times used the name Visbhume; he no longer tippety-taps and moves and jerks to the rhythms of a propulsive inner music; and sometimes one wonders in cases like this: here is the dead thing; where has the music gone?

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Only the fact of my broken limbs prevents me from leaping at your throat.

But even in my life I saw the leaching of spirit. A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength. Light, warmth, food, water, were free to all men, and gained by a minimum of effort. So the people of Ampridatvir, released from toil, gave increasing attention to faddishness, perversity, and the occult.