Vance Quotes

“But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance Rule is: (1) The wizard has to be able to do something unusual, or else he is not a wizard, (2) he cannot do everything, or else there is no drama; therefore (3) the story teller has to communicate to the reader whatever the dividing line is that separates what the wizard can do from what he cannot do, so that the reader can have a reasonable expectation of knowing what the wizard can and cannot do.”

“But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance Rule is: (1) The wizard has to be able to do something unusual, or else he is not a wizard, (2) he cannot do everything, or else there is no drama; therefore (3) the story teller has to communicate to the reader whatever the dividing line is that separates what the wizard can do from what he cannot do, so that the reader can have a reasonable expectation of knowing what the wizard can and cannot do.”

“Each day's dawn is a sweet symphony and as long as I hear the music, my dreams will have to die another day.”

“Faith is the womb in which all worthwhile and spectacular things have ever been born.”

“f you don't think outside of the box, you may just get stuck inside of a cubicle.”

“Outside my bike, never has anything important in my life been just mine." My body stilled, so did my heart, and my eyes locked with his. He started moving again, slowly, deeply and he kept talking. "Always castoffs, leftovers, used, sometimes even food from the dumpsters." My heart started beating again, only to trip over itself; my breath came fast, not only from what was happening to my body but what he was saying. "Vance-" His lips came to mine, his hands moved out of my hair and went to the side of my face and he stared in my eyes, pressing deep inside. "Mine," he muttered, his deep voice hoarse, that fierce undercurrent there. His tone caused a shiver to run through me, straight through to my soul. Then he kissed me.”

“I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!”

“If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.”

“You haven't lost anything when you know were it is. Death can hide but not divide.”

“But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me, but it's just so slow, I'm so terribly slow using it.”

“If you can't pray as you want to pray as you can. God knows what you mean.”