Jack Vance's Lyonesse books are the greatest fairy tale of the twentieth century.

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.

Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.

Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience.

Good music always defeats bad luck

But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection.

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.

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

A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.

I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.

I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.

Speak not against anyone whose burden you have not weighed yourself.

I want to Gods thoughts, the rest are details.

Arrival = Prison, and the artist must never be a prisoner.

Though I have never thought of myself as a book collector, there are shelves in our house browsed so often, on so many rainy winter nights, that the contents have seeped into me as if by osmosis.

Expectations are resentments waiting to happen

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

It isn’t defeat, but rather your mental attitude toward it, that whips you.

Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.

There is no way of writing stories that I haven't done.