Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Direction
Conditions
Cite
Universe
Citing
Place
Intrinsic
Ends
Convenient
Seems
Forth
Must
Leads
Condition

More quotes by Jack Vance

Image
An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of after-thought.
Jack Vance
Image
The inscrutability [of economics] is perhaps not unintentional. It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.
Jack Vance
Image
Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.
Jack Vance
Image
But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction.
Jack Vance
Image
I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet.
Jack Vance
Image
Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party whether he realizes it or not must always come out the worse.
Jack Vance
Image
I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.
Jack Vance
Image
I'd never been published when I was young.
Jack Vance
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Beauty compelled admiration and erotic yearning such was its organic function. But never by itself could it command love.
Jack Vance
Image
A man is like a rope: both break at a definite strain....The solution is not splicing the rope it's lessening the tension.
Jack Vance
Image
A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.
Jack Vance
Image
Since we are not permitted to act, we are obliged to know.
Jack Vance
Image
I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.
Jack Vance
Image
The less a writer discusses his work and himself the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care.
Jack Vance
Image
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
Image
But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.
Jack Vance
Image
Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.
Jack Vance
Image
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.
Jack Vance