Jack Vance

What is an evil man? The man is evil who coerces obedience to his private ends, destroys beauty, produces pain, extinguishes life.

— Jack Vance

“A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man…

— Jack Vance

It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and…

— Jack Vance

I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to.

— Jack Vance

Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance

“My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.”

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance

“A voice issued from the mirror..."The characters read thus: 'Suldrun, sweet Suldrun, leave this room before harm arrives upon you!'" Suldrun looked…

— Jack Vance

“Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life…

— Jack Vance

“Death is the heritage of life; a man’s vitality is like air in a bladder. Poinct this bubble and away, away, away,…

— Jack Vance

I never worked in an office in my life.

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance

“I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But…

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance

“The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed,…

— Jack Vance

“During the months of winter and spring King Casmir looked only twice at the infant princess, in each case, standing back in…

— Jack Vance

If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores…

— Jack Vance

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

— Jack Vance