# Emphyrio

- Author: [Jack Vance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance.md)
- Quotes: 8
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/emphyrio

## Quotes

> IF THERE BE HERE LESSON OR MORAL, IT LIES BEYOND THE COMPETENCE OF HIM WHO INSCRIBES THIS RECORD.

> Control is necessary and even good—so long as I do the controlling.

> Ghyl laughed also. “If I'm too serious, you're too irresponsible.”
>
> “Bah,” retorted Floriel. “Is the world responsible? Of course not! The world is random, vagrant, heedless. To be responsible is to be out of phase, to be insane!”
>
> Ghyl pondered a moment. “This is perhaps the case, in a world left to itself. But society imposes order. Living in a society, it is not insane to be responsible.”

> Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.

> Shanne said, “You are quiet; are you sad?”
>
> “In a way. Do you know why?”
>
> She put her hand across his mouth. “Never speak of it. What must be, will be. What can never be—can never be.”
>
> Ghyl turned to look at her, trying to divine every last scintilla of her meaning.
>
> “But,” she added in a soft voice, “what can be—can be.”

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

> What, given the circumstances, would have been Emphyrio’s course of action?
>
> Truth.
>
> Very well, thought Ghyl: it shall be Truth, and let the consequences fall where they may.

> “Tomorrow?”
>
> “Sh.” She put her hand across his lips. “Never say the word!”