Jack Vance

“Am I known as Cugel the Clever for nothing?”

“Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.”

“My talismans are not obviously useless.”

“I become drunk as circumstances dictate.”

“We prostrate ourselves before the fish-god Yob, who seems as efficacious as any.”

“Only the fact of my broken limbs prevents me from leaping at your throat.”

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

“It is an unthinkable discrepancy that fifty-four men should consume the food intended for fifty-three.”

“Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all.”

“Twango's hospitality, though largely symbolic, does him credit.”

“I am a dull fellow...my person reeks, my conversation consists of insipid platitudes.”

“Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.”

“Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty.”

“There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasure, has no duration. Pride was an entity more persistent.”

“Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often prove invaluable.”

“The banquet proceeded. The first course, a mince of olives, shrimp and onions baked in oyster shells with cheese and parsley was followed by a soup of tunny, cockles and winkles simmered in white wine with leeks and dill. Then, in order, came a service of broiled quail stuffed with morels, served on slices of good white bread, with side dishes of green peas; artichokes cooked in wine and butter, with a salad of garden greens; then tripes and sausages with pickled cabbage; then a noble saddle of venison glazed with cherry sauce and served with barley first simmered in broth, then fried with garlic and sage; then honey-cakes, nuts and oranges; and all the while the goblets flowed full with noble Voluspa and San Sue from Watershade, along with the tart green muscat wine of Dascinet.”

“The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed, with a wide, many-slanted roof of mossy tiles. Beside the entrance five colored lanterns hung in a vertical line: deep green, a dark, smoky scarlet, a gay light green, violet, and once more dark scarlet; and at the bottom, slightly to the side, a small, steady yellow lamp, the purport of all being: Never neglect the wonder of conscious existence, which too soon comes to an end!”

“Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.”

“I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!”

“If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.”

“Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of life, is beautiful.”

“When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, "Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a life of satisfaction and peace. Do you recall this?""Yes, Grandfather.""The learning you shall have. You will learn patience and resource, the ability of your hands and your mind. You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done—so therefore you may never know life of peace. However, I guarantee you ample satisfaction, for I will teach you to crave the blood of these men more than the flesh of woman."The old man had been as good as his word.”

“The Brinktown jail is one of the most ingenious ever propounded by civic authorities. It must be remembered that Brinktown occupies the surface of a volcanic butte, overlooking a trackless jungle of quagmire, thorn, eel-vine skiver tussock. A single road leads from city down to jungle; the prisoner is merely locked out of the city. Escape is at his option; he may flee as far through the jungle as he sees fit: the entire continent is at his disposal. But no prisoner ever ventures far from the gate; and, when his presence is required, it is only necessary to unlock the gate and call his name.”

“What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue.”

“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.”

“One becomes sated with platitudes no less than honey, so that one often breaks another's bones in one's vexation.”

“Good music always defeats bad luck.”

“I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.”

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

“Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic.”