Jack Vance
Award-winning science fiction and fantasy author, who wrote the four-book Dying Earth series.
Shimrod said: "Once I thought of you as a child in a woman's body." Melanchte smiled a cool smile. "And now?" "The child seems to have wandered away".
Claghorn had long insisted that no human condition endured forever, with the corollary that the more complicated such a condition, the greater its susceptibility to change.
We need no chieftain; such folk eat more than their share.
The creature displayed the qualities reminiscent of both coelenterate and echinoderm. A terrene nudibranch? A mollusc deprived of its shell? More importantly, was the creature edible?
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.
I fear, Master Zamp, that you are a victim to your own perfervid imagination.
The merchant voiced an inarticulate protest. Glystra glared at him, “Do you think I trust you?”
“Trust?” said the merchant with a puzzled expression. “Trust? What word is that?” And he tested it several times more.
Enough of this intolerable inanity! I propose that such loquacity passes beyond the scope of the nuisance and over the verge of turpitude.
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...
"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."
He’s like an imbecile with a pepper shaker; a little makes his food taste good, therefore a lot will make it wonderful.
“Let them scoff as they see fit! I will never compromise what I consider my art, especially for the sake of gain!”
“For the sake of gain I’d compromise the art of my grandmother,” muttered Zamp under his breath.
Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.
“You must save yourselves,” Rogol Domedonfors told them. “You have ignored the ancient wisdom, you have been too indolent to learn, you have sought easy complacence from religion, rather than facing manfully to the world.”
Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.
“Let him talk as he will!” scoffed Zamp. “His motives are not at all obscure.”
“I learned a great deal,” said Beran. “And then I lost all heart for further learning.”
Palafox’s eyes glinted. “Education is not achieved through the heart—it is a systematization of the mental processes.”
“But I am something other than a mental process,” said Beran. “I am a man. I must reckon with the whole of myself.”
Shanne said, “You are quiet; are you sad?”
“In a way. Do you know why?”
She put her hand across his mouth. “Never speak of it. What must be, will be. What can never be—can never be.”
Ghyl turned to look at her, trying to divine every last scintilla of her meaning.
“But,” she added in a soft voice, “what can be—can be.”
I'm only giving orders because I'm more efficient and smarter than you are.
"Enter, my friend, enter. How goes your trade?"
"In all candor, not too well," said Cugel. "I am both perplexed and disappointed, for my talismans are not obviously useless."