“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
Jack Vance
Born place: in San Francisco, California, The United States
Born date August 28, 1916
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“Maybe I owe you something too, human," she said, drawing her pistol. Butler almost reacted, but decided to give Holly the benefit of the doubt.
Captain Short plucked a gold coin from her belt, flicking it fifty feet into the moonlit sky. With one fluid movement, she brought her weapon up and loosed a single blast. The coin rose another fifty feet, then spun earthward. Artemis somehow managed to snatch it from the air. The first cool movement of his young life.
"Nice shot," he said. The previously solid disk now had a tiny hole in the center.
Holly held out her hand, revealing the still raw scar on her finger. "If it wasn't for you, I would have missed altogether. No mech-digit can replicate that kind of accuracy. So, thank you too, I suppose."
Artemis held out the coin.
"No," said Holly. "You keep it, to remind you."
"To remind me?"
Holly stared at him frankly. "To remind you that deep beneath the layers of deviousness, you have a spark of decency. Perhaps you could blow on that spark occasionally."
Artemis closed his fingers around the coin. It was warm against his palm.
"Yes, perhaps.”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from The Arctic Incident
“We're more of a bag-and-tag operation.”
― Lara Adrian, quote from Kiss of Crimson
“Why should "Honor thy father and thy mother" be a commandment, and "Honor thy child" not?”
― Harry Mulisch, quote from The Discovery of Heaven
“Nothing just happens. You always have to strive.”
― Marcus Luttrell, quote from Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
“i was accused of being against civilization, against science, against humanity. naturally, i was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. he repeated the charge. but how, i replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could i be against humanity without being against myself, whom i love - though not very much; how can i be against science, when i gratefully admire, as much as i can, thales, democritus, aristarchus, faustus, paracelsus, copernicus, galiley, kepler, newton, darwin and einstien; and finally, how could i be against civilization when all which i most willingly defend and venerate - including the love of wilderness - is comprehended by the term”
― Edward Abbey, quote from Desert Solitaire
Specimen Days
Truth and Beauty
Manhunting
The Beatrice Letters
The Last Season
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