Quote

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.

Jack Vance

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Jack Vance
Age: 96 †
Born: 1916
Born: August 28
Died: 2013
Died: May 26
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
San Francisco County
California
John Holbrook Vance
Jack Vance
John H. Vance
Good
Facility
Uncertain
Denied
Relative
Uncertainty
Formulations
Ease
Uncertainties
Absolutes
Undeniable
Real
Orthodoxy

More quotes by Jack Vance

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I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.
Jack Vance
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I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.
Jack Vance
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Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.
Jack Vance
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I'd never been published when I was young.
Jack Vance
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A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.
Jack Vance
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Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.
Jack Vance
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An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of after-thought.
Jack Vance
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Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.
Jack Vance
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I must cite an intrinsic condition of the universe. We set forth in any direction which seems convenient each leads to the same place: the end of the universe.
Jack Vance
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In the end, death came uniformly to all, and all extracted as much satisfaction from their dying as this essentially graceless process could afford.
Jack Vance
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Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.
Jack Vance
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Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic.
Jack Vance
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Count me not your friend but the enemy of your enemies.
Jack Vance
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As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.
Jack Vance
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While we are alive we should sit among colored lights and taste good wines, and discuss our adventures in far places when we are dead, the opportunity is past.
Jack Vance
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There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
Jack Vance
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I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.
Jack Vance
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I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.
Jack Vance
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But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.
Jack Vance
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A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.
Jack Vance