Jack Vance
Award-winning science fiction and fantasy author, who wrote the four-book Dying Earth series.
Another busy day! So let’s to business. The clock moves forward; wasted time is life defeated!
“It sees that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.”
The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.
“Are these not facts?” asked Joaz. “How do you reconcile them with your faith?
“The Demie said mildly, “Facts can never be reconciled with faith.”
You emphasize morality. But the ultimate basis of morality is survival. What promotes survival is good; what induces mortifaction is bad.
“Navigation on this lake is forbidden to aliens,” he declared. “We are ordered to sink all intruding vessels. Prepare to drown.”
It had been suggested to her that the flaw lay not in the universe but in herself.
What, given the circumstances, would have been Emphyrio’s course of action?
Truth.
Very well, thought Ghyl: it shall be Truth, and let the consequences fall where they may.
And I understand they are, in a sense, artists? That is to say, they understand the creative process, the sublimation of fact to symbol and the use of symbol to suggest emotion?
"At Gundar we conceive 'innocence' as a positive quality, not merely an insipid absence of guilt," stated the Nolde. "We are not the fools that certain untidy ruffians might suppose."