Jack Vance

Quotes

1. 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

2. 

   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

3. 

   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

4. 

   “I watch the sea and the sky; sometimes I wade in the surf and build roads in the sand. At night I study the stars.”

   “You have no friends?”

   “No.”

   “And what of the future?”

   “The future stops at ‘now’.”

   “As to that, I am not so sure,” said Shimrod. “It is at best a half-truth.”

   “What of that? Half a truth is better than none: do you not agree?”

   “Not altogether,” said Shimrod. “I am a practical man, I try to control the shape of the ‘nows’ which lie in the offing, instead of submitting to them as they occur.”

   Melancthe gave an uninterested shrug. “You are free to do as you like.” Leaning back in the divan, she looked out across the sea.

   Shimrod finally spoke. “Well then: are you ‘good’ or ‘bad’?”

   “I don’t know.”

   Shimrod became vexed. “Talking with you is like visiting an empty house.”

   Melancthe considered a moment before responding. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are visiting the wrong house. Or perhaps you are the wrong visitor.”

   p. 783

5. 

   A notable scheme has occurred to me.

   p. 371

6. 

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

   p. 394

7. 

   “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

8. 

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

   p. 419

9. 

   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

10. 

    In measured tones he answered Madouc: “Your condition lacks dignity; you bring ridicule upon us all.”

    Madouc gave a stony shrug. “If you do not like what you see, look elsewhere.”

    p. 928

11. 

    I have seen all I care to see and heard rather more.

    p. 792

12. 

    Sir, your ideas are incorrect in every possible respect.

    p. 848