Jack Vance Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.

  Jack Vance

  Men, Order, Trying

  "The Languages of Pao" by Jack Vance, iBooks, (p. 133), 2004.

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• What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace and egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of peace in this world of men.

  Jack Vance

  Men, Air, Eggs

  "Madouc". Book by Jack Vance, 1989.

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• Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party whether he realizes it or not must always come out the worse.

  Jack Vance

  Party, Balance, Realizing

  Jack Vance (2011). “Rhialto the Marvellous”, p.73, Hachette UK

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• Vance has a genius in evoking the beauty of strangeness, the strangeness of beauty.

  Jack Vance

  Genius, Strangeness

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• I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

  Jack Vance

  Writing, Felt, Sells

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• I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.

  Jack Vance

  Men, Race, Victory

  Jack Vance (1966). “The Last Castle”, p.37, Spatterlight Press

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• The inscrutability [of economics] is perhaps not unintentional. It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.

  Jack Vance

  Giving, Employment, Might

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• I must cite an intrinsic condition of the universe. We set forth in any direction which seems convenient; each leads to the same place: the end of the universe.

  Jack Vance

  Citing, Ends, Convenient

  Jack Vance (2000). “Rhialto the Marvellous”, p.716, Macmillan

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• Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.

  Jack Vance

  Loss, Garments, Existence

  Jack Vance (2000). “Cugel the Clever: (previously titled The Eyes of the Overworld)”, p.235, Macmillan

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• It is useless, after all, to complain against inexorable reality.

  Jack Vance

  Reality, Complaining, Useless

  Jack Vance (2000). “Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight: (previously titled Cugel's Saga)”, p.535, Macmillan

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• Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

  Jack Vance

  Writing, Thinking, Backgrounds

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• The universe is eight billion years old, the last two billion of which have produced intelligent life. During this time not one hour of absolute equity has prevailed.

  Jack Vance

  Intelligent, Eight, Years

  Jack Vance (1964). “The Houses of Iszm”, p.52, Spatterlight Press

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• The life we've been leading couldn't last forever. It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

  Jack Vance

  Long, Forever, Lasts

  Jack Vance (1966). “The Last Castle”, p.21, Spatterlight Press

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• I suffer from a spiritual malaise which manifests itself in outbursts of vicious rage.

  Jack Vance

  Spiritual, Suffering, Rage

  Jack Vance (2000). “Cugel the Clever: (previously titled The Eyes of the Overworld)”, p.286, Macmillan

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• How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

  Jack Vance

  Real, Ease, Orthodoxy

  Jack Vance (2007). “The Jack Vance Treasury”, Subterranean

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• There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

  Jack Vance

  Littles, Remember, Influence

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• Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.

  Jack Vance

  Wild Imagination, Imagination, Wonderful

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• In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you.

  Jack Vance

  Jobs, Facts

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• I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.

  Jack Vance

  Book, Want, Individual

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• I give dignity second place to expedience.

  Jack Vance

  Giving, Dignity, Expedience

  Jack Vance (1998). “The complete dying earth”

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• Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.

  Jack Vance

  Travel, Son, Giving

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• You used the word "civilization", which means a set of abstractions, symbols, conventions. Experience tends to be vicarious; emotions are predigested and electrical; ideas become more real than things.

  Jack Vance

  Real, Mean, Civilization

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• The void is a mouth crying to be filled, a blank mind aching for thought, a cavity desperate for shape. What is not implies what is.

  Jack Vance

  Blank Mind, Mouths, Shapes

  "To Live Forever" by Jack Vance, (Chapter XI, section 1), 1956.

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• Truth" is contained in the preconceptions of him who seeks to define it. Any organization of ideas whatever presupposes a judgment on the world.

  Jack Vance

  Organization, Ideas, World

  Jack Vance (1958). “The Languages of Pao”, p.97, Spatterlight Press

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• I'd never been published when I was young.

  Jack Vance

  Young

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