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

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.