Jack Vance

Quotes

1. “Dame Fairy of the Silver Eyes: allow me to put you a question, which is this: where should I seek the Holy Grail?”

   “Determine its location and go to that spot; that is my wise advice.”

   Travante spoke tentatively: “If you could guide me to my lost youth, I would be most grateful.”

   Twisk jumped high in the air, pirouetted, settled slowly to the ground. “I am not an index of the world’s worries. I know nothing either of Christian crockery nor truant time! And now: silence!

   p. 881

2. 

   “We are supposed to set you a good example,” said Devonet. “As a start, I will point out that a lady of refinement would not wish to be found so high in a tree.”

   “Then I am a lady of refinement well and truly,” said Madouc, “since I did not wish to be found.”

   p. 718

3. 

   “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

4. 

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

   p. 505

5. 

   Madouc, this is my advice: pick up yonder clod of dirt, and tender it to that pop-eyed little imp, speaking these words: “Zocco, with this token I both imburse and reimburse you, in full fee and total account, now and then, anon and for ever, in this world and all others, and in every other conceivable respect, for each and every service you have performed for me or in my behalf, real or imaginary, to the limits of time, in all directions.”

   p. 731

6. 

   “Tell me, then! What is so important?”

   “Your life! I could not bear that you should lose it!”

   “I feel much the same. Say on.”

   p. 948

7. 

   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

8. 

   King Aillas talks softly and with great politeness; he has the uncomfortable skill of calling one a false-hearted blackguard, a liar, a cheat and a villain, but making it seem a fulsome compliment.

   p. 807

9. 

   “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

10. 

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

    p. 480

11. 

    “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

12. 

    “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