Jack Vance on Life

"“The crime,” said the Jacynth softly, “is abstract and fundamental: the innate depravity of extinguishing life."

"“Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?” asked Shimrod. “Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort."

"I have much to say about the world, but every year the compulsion dwindles. Let them live and die; it is all one to me."

"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."

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

"Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset."

"Sir, my life, drab and insipid though it may seem to others, is the only life given me to live."

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

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

"Surveillance portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence."

"I give dignity second place to expedience."

"Die then. This is my cure for sore knees."

"I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter."

"“It is simple dog-eat-dog,” said Waylock. It’s basic battle for survival, fiercer and more brutal than ever before in the history of man. You have blinded yourself; you subscribe to false theories; you are permeated with your obsession—not only you but all of us. If we faced the facts of existence, our palliatories would be less crowded."

"Urbanized men and women experience not life but the abstraction of life, on ever higher levels of refinement and dislocation from reality. They become processors of ideas, and have evolved such esoteric occupations as the critic, the critic who criticizes criticism, and even the critic who criticizes criticism of criticism. It is a very sad misuse of human talent and energy."