Jack Vance citáty
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Jack Vance, vlastním jménem John Holbrook Vance byl americký důlní inženýr, fyzik, scenárista a spisovatel science fiction, fantasy a detektivních příběhů. Počátky jeho tvorby jsou spojeny s tzv. Zlatým věkem science fiction. Wikipedia  

✵ 28. srpen 1916 – 26. květen 2013   •   Další jména جک ونس, ჯეკ ვენსი
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Jack Vance: 213   citátů 0   lajků

Jack Vance: Citáty anglicky

“A detached attitude toward the problems of others is not illegal.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Killing Machine (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 180)

“Destiny could not bring him this far only to deal him failure!”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 10 (p. 122)

“The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 79)

“Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces…As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 3 (pp. 32-33)

“Revenge is not an ignoble motive, when it works to a productive end.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 28)

“You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful?”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 27)

“A natural scientist, examining a single atom, might well be able to asseverate the structure and history of the entire universe!”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Bah!" muttered Hurtiancz. "By the same token, a sensible man need listen to but a single word in order to recognize the whole for egregious nonsense."
"Morreion", Ch. 8
Dying Earth (1950-1984), Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

“I was trained in the old tradition! We found our strength in the basic verities, to which you, as a patrician, must surely subscribe. Am I right in this?”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

“Absolutely, and in all respects!” declared Cugel. “Recognizing, of course, that these fundamental verities vary from region to region, and even from person to person.”
Zdroj: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 3, section 2, "Faucelme"

“Let them scoff as they see fit! I will never compromise what I consider my art, especially for the sake of gain!”

Jack Vance kniha Showboat World

“For the sake of gain I’d compromise the art of my grandmother,” muttered Zamp under his breath.
Zdroj: Showboat World (1975), Chapter 14 (p. 168)

“You’re sure you want to look into these cognates? You might see things you wouldn’t like.”

“So long as I know the truth, I don’t care whether I like it or not.”
Section 6 (p. 186)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)

“My wealth is my shelf of books!”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Zdroj: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Face (1979), Chapter 14 (p. 173)

“Do you deny the charges?”

Jack Vance Planet of Adventure

“I neither confirm nor deny them; they are ridiculous.”
Zdroj: Planet of Adventure (1968-1970), The Dirdir (1969), Chapter 20 (pp. 408-409)

“You make very narrow distinctions.”

Jack Vance kniha Night Lamp

Zdroj: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 13, section 7 (p. 230)
Kontext: “Of course! That is the nature of clear thinking.”

“They meant no harm, of course; they wanted only that he be like themselves, which was the prerogative of all parents.”

Jack Vance kniha Night Lamp

Zdroj: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 5, section 1 (p. 68)

“There is no mystery about violence. It is the reflexive act of brutes, boors and moral defectives.”

Jack Vance kniha Night Lamp

Zdroj: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 3, section 1 (p. 37)

“Except for a few special cases, title to every parcel of real property derives from an act of violence, more or less remote, and ownership is only as valid as the strength and will required to maintain it. That is the lesson of history, whether you like it or not.”

Jack Vance kniha The Gray Prince

“The mourning of defeated peoples, while pathetic and tragic, is usually futile,” said Kelse.
Zdroj: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 16 (p. 159)

“The travesty exists only because reliance upon abstraction has made reality incomprehensible to you.”

Jack Vance kniha The Gray Prince

Zdroj: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 16 (p. 159)

“How I hate you. If hate were stone I could build a tower into the clouds.”

Jack Vance kniha The Gray Prince

Zdroj: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 15 (p. 152)

“Often their grievances were real; often they complained from sheer petulance.”

Jack Vance kniha The Gray Prince

Zdroj: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]) Prologue (p. 8)

“My brain, otherwise a sound instrument, has a serious defect—a hypertrophied lobe of curiosity.”

Jack Vance kniha The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph

The Howling Bounders (p. 56)
Short fiction, The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)

“I’d rather be a live pessimist than a dead comedian.”

Zdroj: Short fiction, Future Tense (1964), Sail 25 (p. 93)