Jack Vance

Quotes

1. “Only children are intolerant of conventions. They are indispensable to an organized civilization, like discipline to an army, or foundations to a building, or landmarks to a traveler. Without conventions civilization is a handful of water. An army without discipline is a mob. A building without foundations is rubble. A traveler without landmarks is lost.”

   Lorcas stated that he opposed not all convention, but only those which he found irksome and pointless.

   p. 246

2. 

   “As I listen to you I hear only ingenuousness and didactic theory.”

   Lorcas compressed his lips. “Perhaps because you are hearing views which contradict your emotions.”

   p. 246

3. 

   “While we were gone someone broke into my case and stole most of my things.”

   The news seemed to drive Skorlet close to the limits of self-control. “And what do you expect?” she snapped in an unpleasantly harsh voice. “This is an egalistic country; why should you have more than anyone else?”

   “I have been over-egalized,” said Jantiff drily. “To the effect that I now have less than anyone else.”

   p. 324

4. 

   “Bah,” muttered Sul. “I am unable to chop logic with you; you have the superior sleight with words.”

   p. 179

5. 

   “I made no such assertion,” Ifness said. “You drew a faulty inference, for which I cannot accept responsibility. In any event the situation is more complicated than you suppose, and you must be prepared for subtlety.”

   “Subtlety or deception?” demanded Etzwane. “The effect is much the same.”

   Ifness held up his hand. “I will explain the situation, if only to reduce the flow of your reproaches.”

   p. 25

6. 

   I am not the man for this sort of business; I detest puzzlement.

   p. 126

7. 

   Which is better: cheap submission or expensive independence?

   p. 195

8. 

   “I perceive your ideological bias.”

   “It is not bias to favor the tried and true ways of the past; it is ordinary common sense.”

   p. 144

9. 

   “Where are the Red Devil bones?”

   “Not far distant: beyond the ridge. Can you not sense the presence of so much death?”

   Ifness responded in a measured voice: “An intellect in full control of itself unfortunately must sacrifice that receptivity which distinguishes the primitive mentality. This is an evolutionary step I have, on the whole, been happy to make.”

   p. 55

10. 

    There’s ample human achievement in the universe, but not nearly enough beauty.

    p. 91

11. 

    I know now what I should have known every moment of my life; that unless you help yourself, you die a slave. The fact is basic.

    p. 181

12. 

    Drowsing in the warmth, Etzwane could find no occasion for haste; indeed, the prospect of docking the boat and stepping ashore aroused in him a curious mood of melancholy. The adventure would then be definitely finished; for all its misery and black despair, he had lived to his utmost capacity; he had augmented and enriched his life.

    p. 194