# The Green Pearl

- Author: [Jack Vance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance.md)
- Quotes: 22
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-green-pearl

## Quotes

> 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.

p. 430

> “If ambush I must, then ambush I will,” Aillas muttered to himself. “A fig for chivalry, at least until the war is won.”

p. 518

> Dango, Pume, Thwither: down with Visbhume’s breeches; let him hold his backside at the ready.

p. 505

> He said that humanity in the main was crass, stupid, boorish and vulgar, and that I could learn at least this much from you.

p. 451

> “Are you yourself a Christian?”
>
> The young man made a negative sign. “The concepts of religion baffle me.”
>
> “This inscrutability is perhaps not unintentional,” said the ex-priest. “It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.”

p. 367

> Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.

p. 480

> “You drink only sparingly. Is the beer too thin?”
>
> “No at all. I merely wish to keep my wits about me. It would not do if both of us became addled, and later woke up in doubt as to who was who.”

p. 447

> “I would define ‘avarice’ as a consequence of the human estate: a condition arising from turbulence and inequality. In none of the paradises, where conditions are no doubt optimum, does ‘avarice’ exert force. Here, we are men struggling toward perfection and ‘avarice’ is a station along the way.”

p. 545

> 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.

p. 538

> Aillas replied that while King Audry cited several points of technical interest, and used the resources of abstract logic in an adroit manner, he had actually made no connection with reality.

p. 626

> Shimrod said: “Once I thought of you as a child in a woman’s body.”
>
> Melancthe smiled a cool smile. “And now?”
>
> “The child seems to have wandered away.”

p. 436

> A notable scheme has occurred to me.

p. 371

> You have frightened and daunted me. I will stop stealing at once.

p. 394

> “Sir Tristano spoke: “Stop! You are taking the great green pearl!”
>
> “Naturally!” said the voice from a point close behind. “That is the whole point of robbery: to acquire the victim’s valuables!”

p. 375

> Sir, my life, drab and insipid though it may seem to others, is the only life given me to live.

p. 419

> I gathered that the old fellow suffers from some advanced form of senile dementia, and so perhaps his analysis is not totally accurate.

p. 430

> You are a particularly clever girl: almost as clever as you are appealing to the eye.

p. 635

> “It is no hardship whatever,” said Aillas. “You have never strained at the deed. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and suddenly you find the idea incredible. Do you not sense a taint of unreality?”

p. 571

> “Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?” asked Shimrod. “Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort.”

p. 657

> A single question remained, the age-old cry of anguish: “How could one so beautiful be so base?”

p. 434

> They call me a renegade.
>
> The epithet is inaccurate and undeserved. I cannot be faithless to a cause which I never have endorsed. Indeed, I am absolutely faithful to the only cause I espouse, which is my own welfare. I take pride in this unswerving loyalty!

p. 418

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

p. 449