Quotes from The Dying Earth

Jack Vance ·  156 pages

Rating: (6.2K votes)


“Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life is a wicked theft”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“What great minds lie in the dust,” said Guyal in a low voice. “What gorgeous souls have vanished into the buried ages; what marvellous creatures are lost past the remotest memory … Nevermore will there be the like; now in the last fleeting moments, humanity festers rich as rotten fruit. Rather than master and overpower our world, our highest aim is to cheat it through sorcery.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“But even in my life I saw the leaching of spirit. A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength. Light, warmth, food, water, were free to all men, and gained by a minimum of effort. So the people of Ampridatvir, released from toil, gave increasing attention to faddishness, perversity, and the occult.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“T’sain shrugged. “I have lived little, and I am not wise. Yet I know that everyone is entitled to life.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“It is thus because it has always been thus. Is not this reason enough?”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth



“My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“Death is the heritage of life; a man’s vitality is like air in a bladder. Poinct this bubble and away, away, away, flees life, like the color of fading dream.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“You are evil like all existence. ... If power were mine I would crush the universe to bloody gravel and stamp into the ultimate muck!”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“An enemy, perhaps. Ah, so simple. Liane will kill you ten men. Two steps forward, thrust — thus!” He lunged. “And souls go thrilling up like bubbles in a beaker of mead.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth



“T'sais mounted her horse and set out for Earth, seeking love and beauty.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


“I hate you with the hate that I give to all the world; I love you with a feeling nothing else arouses.”
― Jack Vance, quote from The Dying Earth


About the author

Jack Vance
Born place: in San Francisco, California, The United States
Born date August 28, 1916
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