# Quote — Jack Vance, The Palace of Love

> My great pleasure is creation—of this I never tire. Some of my guests have complained of a gentle melancholy which hangs in the air; I agree that the mood exists. The explanation, I believe, arises from the fugacity of beauty, the tragic pavanne to which all of us step.

- Author: [Jack Vance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance.md)
- Book: [The Palace of Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-palace-of-love.md)
- Page: 415
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Vance#The_Palace_of_Love_(1967)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-palace-of-love/my-great-pleasure

## More from this book

> The symbologist made a cryptic sign. “That remains to be seen, as the cat said who voided into the sugar bowl.”

p. 432 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-palace-of-love/the-symbologist-made.md)

> I am an unhappy man. I am haunted by my inability to express the inexpressible, to come to terms with the unknown. The pursuit of beauty is, of course, a major psychological drive. It its various guises—which is to say, the urge to perfection, the yearning to merge with the eternal, the explorer’s restlessness, the realization of an Absolute created by ourselves, yet larger than our totality—it is perhaps the most important human thrust.

p. 346 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-palace-of-love/i-am-an-unhappy.md)

> “Be on your way; this is holy soil.”
>
> “How can you be so sure? It looks like ordinary dirt.”

p. 419 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-palace-of-love/be-on-your.md)