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0e23b6d
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What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue." --
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Jack Vance |
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666c10c
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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.
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lodermulch
the-eyes-of-the-overworld
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Jack Vance |
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65b374a
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If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.
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religion
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Jack Vance |
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911cf85
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I understand the gist of your speculation,' said Rhialto. 'It is most likely nuncupatory.
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humor
vocabulary
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Jack Vance |
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893f7ba
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I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!
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fantasy
vance
dying-earth
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Jack Vance |
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f885732
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You are young; you have hopes. One by one they will go, and nothing will be left but the bare fact of life.
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hopelessness
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Jack Vance |
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b9512a0
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What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since whatever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapors rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.
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Jack Vance |
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11b361a
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Light slanting down across Alode the Cliff illuminated a hundred forests; the irradiated foliage seemed to glow with internal light: bitter lime, intense gray-blue given pointillist fire by scarlet seed-pots, dark umber, black-blue, black-green
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Jack Vance |
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c187549
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I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.
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Jack Vance |
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7683f18
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Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.
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princess
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Jack Vance |
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8d6bfb4
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When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, "Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a life of satisfaction and peace. Do you recall this?" "Yes, Grandfather." "The learning you shall have. You will learn patience and resource, the ability of your hands and your mind. You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work ..
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the-star-king
vengeance
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Jack Vance |
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1f60ff8
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Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox--finally irregulationary.
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Jack Vance |
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001f33c
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The symbologist made a cryptic sign. "That remains to be seen, as the cat said who voided into the sugar bowl."
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naked-lunch
what-lies-beneath
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Jack Vance |
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216c2d4
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The dead man's companions at the counter started to their feet, but halted as Voynod with great aplomb turned to face them. "Take care, you dunghill cocks! Notice the fate of your fellow! He died by the power of my magic blade, which is of inexorable metal and cuts rock and steel like butter. Behold!" And Voynod struck out at a pillar. The blade, striking an iron bracket, broke into a dozen pieces. Voynod stood non-plussed, but the bravo's ..
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Jack Vance |
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6baf7be
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Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of life, is beautiful.
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the-palace-of-love
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Jack Vance |
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e2dd198
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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
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Jack Vance |
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7e325b7
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I can resolve your perplexity,' said Fianosther. 'Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.' 'No need,' said Cugel. 'My interest was cursory.
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Jack Vance |
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0a4d320
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I am not partial to folk who are grim and austere. I prefer fanciful folk who make me laugh.
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Jack Vance |
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90f4289
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The Brinktown jail is one of the most ingenious ever propounded by civic authorities. It must be remembered that Brinktown occupies the surface of a volcanic butte, overlooking a trackless jungle of quagmire, thorn, eel-vine skiver tussock. A single road leads from city down to jungle; the prisoner is merely locked out of the city. Escape is at his option; he may flee as far through the jungle as he sees fit: the entire continent is at his ..
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jail
prison
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Jack Vance |
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2cb3e3c
|
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.
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Jack Vance |
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82e5f2b
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The world is a place of marvels
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Jack Vance |
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05bc8df
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It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
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Jack Vance |
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75f2b73
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The banquet proceeded. The first course, a mince of olives, shrimp and onions baked in oyster shells with cheese and parsley was followed by a soup of tunny, cockles and winkles simmered in white wine with leeks and dill. Then, in order, came a service of broiled quail stuffed with morels, served on slices of good white bread, with side dishes of green peas; artichokes cooked in wine and butter, with a salad of garden greens; then tripes an..
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Jack Vance |
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3ed4690
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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."
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Jack Vance |
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8dd0e95
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Excellent; all is well. The 'everlasting tedium' exactly countervenes the 'immediate onset of death' and I am left only with the 'canker' which, in the person of Firx, already afflicts me. One must use his wits in dealing with maledictions.
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Jack Vance |
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3b90f89
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I live in a constant flux; I am unable to make fixed plans.
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Jack Vance |
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9bd74a7
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T'sain shrugged. "I have lived little, and I am not wise. Yet I know that everyone is entitled to life."
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Jack Vance |
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1ecad48
|
Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often p..
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Jack Vance |
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b7e46cc
|
You are sauntering along the back streets of Avallon; you step into a tavern for a cup of wine. A great lummox claims that you have molested his wife; he takes up his cutlass and comes at you. So now! With your knife! Draw and throw! All in a single movement! You advance, pull your knife from the villain's neck, wipe it on his sleeve. If in fact you have molested the dead churl's wife, bid her begone! The episode has quite dampened your spi..
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humour
knife-throwing
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Jack Vance |
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ba9f82a
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Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese. Aillas said: 'Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I offer you a bite of cheese?' 'I care for no cheese, though it is an amusing concept.' 'In that case, allow me a moment while I cut a morsel or two for myself, as I hunger.' 'I have no time to spare while you eat cheese; prepare instead for death.
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humour
fantasy
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Jack Vance |
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a86d12f
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I will say little more. Cugel, you have small acquaintance with the trade, but I take it as a good sign that you have come to me for training, since my nethods are not soft. You will learn or you will drown, or suffer a blow of the flukes, or worse, incur my displeasure. But you have started well and I will teach you well. Never think me harsh, or over-bearing; you will be in self-defeating error! I am stern, yes, even severe, but in the en..
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inspirational
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Jack Vance |
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02c974d
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I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.
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Jack Vance |
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aa6372d
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The Vine of Life grows a single melon. The color of the heart is unknown until the rind is split.
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aphorism
navarth
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Jack Vance |
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1d2ac50
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The forest of Tantrevalles shades a deep dank soil; somewhere under this mold lies the carcass of a snake which in better times used the name Visbhume; he no longer tippety-taps and moves and jerks to the rhythms of a propulsive inner music; and sometimes one wonders in cases like this: here is the dead thing; where has the music gone?
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Jack Vance |
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f79fca1
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Who are our basic enemies? This is a secret, unknown even to these basic enemies." -- Xaviar Skolcamp, Over-Centennial Fellow of the Institute, indulgently, in response to a journalist's too-searching question"
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Jack Vance |
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9633888
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It is thus because it has always been thus. Is not this reason enough?
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Jack Vance |
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64f5d93
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It occurs to me that the man and his religion are one and the same thing. The unknown exists. Each man projects on the blankness the shape of his own particular world-view. He endows his creation with his personal volitions and attitudes. The religious man stating his case is in essence explaining himself. When a fanatic is contradicted he feels a threat to his own existence; he reacts violently.
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religion
philosophy-of-religion
religion-and-philoshophy
|
Jack Vance |
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fa627ff
|
A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength.
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Jack Vance |
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11799b4
|
Somewhere there is mystery. It impels one to theosophy: to the worship of a space-god, or a god of light." "Theory dissolves the mystery, though it lays bare a cryptic new stratum. Quite likely there is an endless set of these layers, mystery below mystery."
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Jack Vance |
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d5c535a
|
Guyal of Sfere had been born one apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void that ached for nourishment. It was as if a spell had been cast upon his birth, a harassment visited on the child in a spirit of sardonic mockery, so that every occurrence, no matter how trifling, became a source of wonder and amazement. Even as young as four he was ..
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dying-earth
jack-vance
|
Jack Vance |
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4ae8c9b
|
If there were no fools,' said Circumbright, 'either among us or among them, we could co-inhabit the earth. there's the flaw in any compromise negotiation - the fact of fools, both among the Teleks and the common men.
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fools
|
Jack Vance |
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8875a4d
|
There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasure, has no duration. Pride was an entity more persistent.
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pain
pride
pleasure
|
Jack Vance |
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171c2be
|
My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.
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Jack Vance |
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da3c1b3
|
The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed, with a wide, many-slanted roof of mossy tiles. Beside the entrance five colored lanterns hung in a vertical line: deep green, a dark, smoky scarlet, a gay light green, violet, and once more dark scarlet; and at the bottom, slightly to the side, a small, steady yellow lamp, the purport of all being: Ne..
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Jack Vance |