Quotes from Jack Vance

At the last moments of the universe, with eternal darkness converging from all sides, surely someone will arise and cry out: 'Hold back the end for a final moment, while I pay tribute to the gallant brewmasters who have provided us a pathway of golden glory down the fading corridors of time!' And then, is it not possible that a bright gap will appear in the dark, through which the brewmasters are allowed to proceed, to build a finer universe?

Lord Daldace looked about as if seeing the villa for the first time. "What are dreams? Ordinary experience is a dream. The eyes, the ears, the nose: they present pictures on the brain, and these pictures are called 'reality'. At night, when we dream, other pictures, of source unknown, are impinged. Sometimes the dream-images are more real than 'reality'. Which is solid, which illusion? Why trouble to make the distinction?

If there were no fools,' said Circumbright, 'either among us or among them, we could co-inhabit the earth. there's the flaw in any compromise negotiation - the fact of fools, both among the Teleks and the common men.

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

My talismans are not obviously useless.

Who are our basic enemies? This is a secret, unknown even to these basic enemies." — Xaviar Skolcamp, Over-Centennial Fellow of the Institute, indulgently, in response to a journalist's too-searching question

It is thus because it has always been thus. Is not this reason enough?

There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasure, has no duration. Pride was an entity more persistent.

Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese. Aillas said: 'Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I offer you a bite of cheese?' 'I care for no cheese, though it is an amusing concept.' 'In that case, allow me a moment while I cut a morsel or two for myself, as I hunger.' 'I have no time to spare while you eat cheese; prepare instead for death.

My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.

It occurs to me that the man and his religion are one and the same thing. The unknown exists. Each man projects on the blankness the shape of his own particular world-view. He endows his creation with his personal volitions and attitudes. The religious man stating his case is in essence explaining himself. When a fanatic is contradicted he feels a threat to his own existence; he reacts violently.

I admit to a specialized occupation, which in fact has not so much as acquired a name. Not to put too keen an edge on it, I wait under gallows until the corpse drops, whereupon I assume possession of the clothes and valuables. I find little competition in the field; the work is dull, and I will never become wealthy, but at least it is honest, and I have time to daydream.

A voice issued from the mirror...The characters read thus: 'Suldrun, sweet Suldrun, leave this room before harm arrives upon you!' Suldrun looked about her. What would harm me? Let the bottled imps clamp your hair or your fingers and you will learn the meaning of harm. The two heads spoke at the same time: What a wicked remark! We are as faithful as doves. Oh! It is bitter to be maligned, when we cannot seek redress for the wrong!

Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow.

Earth . . . A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge . . . Ages of rain and wind have beaten and rounded the granite, and the sun is red and feeble . . . A million cities have lifted towers, have fallen to dust. In place of the old peoples a few thousand strange souls live. There is evil on Earth . . . Earth is dying . . .

Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset.

I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.

Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles existed a hundred or more fairy shees, each the castle of a fairy tribe. Thripsey Shee on Madling Meadow, little more than a mile within the precincts of the forest, was ruled by King Throbius and his spouse Queen Bossum. His realm included Madling Meadow and as much of the forest surrounding as was consistent with his dignity. The fairies at Thripsey numbered eighty-six.

On the heights above the river Xzan, at the site of certain ancient ruins, Iucounu the Laughing Magician had built a manse to his private taste: an eccentric structure of steep gables, balconies, sky-walks, cupolas, together with three spiral green glass towers through which the red sunlight shone in twisted glints and peculiar colors.

The world now lacks a Sir Pom-pom, with all his funny ways! I wonder where he is now? Or is he anywhere at all? Can someone be nowhere?

Observe! I hold the magic tablet of truth! You are Monster; I am Man. Each is alone; each sees dawn and dusk; each feels pain and pain's ease. Why should one be victor and the other victim? We will never agree; never shall you know gain by the toil of man! Submit to the what-must-be! If you fail to heed, then you must taste a bitter brew and never again walk the sands of dark Sigil.

Let us leave this room, said Melancthe. It reeks of the brain.

The young woman quoted Turgenev, If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly or even harm him, you reproach him with every defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself.

I dare not kill you. But I can break more bones, and you will walk sideways like a crab.