“A detached attitude toward the problems of others is not illegal.”
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Killing Machine (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 180)
John Holbrook Vance foi um escritor de ficção científica e fantasia estadunidense, embora o próprio Vance tenha por diversas vezes se manifestado contra esses rótulos.[carece de fontes?] A maior parte do seu trabalho foi publicado sob o nome Jack Vance. Vance publicou 11 histórias de mistério como John Holbrook Vance e 3 como Ellery Queen. Utilizou ainda outros pseudônimos, tais como Alan Wade, Peter Held, John van See, Jay Kavanse.
Entre suas premiações estão o Hugo Award ; um Nebula Award em 1966, também por The Last Castle; o Jupiter Award em 1975; o World Fantasy Award em 1984 pelo conjunto da obra e em 1990 por Lyonesse: Madouc; um Edgar Award pelo melhor romance de mistério de 1961 por The Man in the Cage. Em 1992 ele foi Convidado de Honra da WorldCon em Orlando, Flórida; e em 1996 foi nomeado Grande Mestre da SFWA.
No geral, é tido em alta estima por críticos e colegas de profissão, alguns dos quais sugeriram que ele transcende rótulos de gênero e deveria ser considerado como um escritor importante pelos padrões da literatura convencional. Poul Anderson, por exemplo, certa vez chamou-o de "o maior escritor estadunidense vivo" na ficção científica . Wikipedia

“A detached attitude toward the problems of others is not illegal.”
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: 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
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 10 (p. 122)
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 8 (p. 83)
“The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.”
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 79)
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 6 (p. 59)
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: 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
Fonte: 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
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 27)
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)
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.”
Fonte: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 3, section 2, "Faucelme"
Jack Vance livro Showboat World
“For the sake of gain I’d compromise the art of my grandmother,” muttered Zamp under his breath.
Fonte: 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)
Startling Stories (September 1948), p. 113
Short fiction, Sanatoris Short-Cut (1948)
“My wealth is my shelf of books!”
Jack Vance Demon Princes
Fonte: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Face (1979), Chapter 14 (p. 173)
Jack Vance Planet of Adventure
“I neither confirm nor deny them; they are ridiculous.”
Fonte: Planet of Adventure (1968-1970), The Dirdir (1969), Chapter 20 (pp. 408-409)
“You make very narrow distinctions.”
Jack Vance livro Night Lamp
Fonte: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 13, section 7 (p. 230)
Contexto: “Of course! That is the nature of clear thinking.”
Jack Vance livro Night Lamp
Fonte: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 5, section 3 (p. 81)
Jack Vance livro Night Lamp
Fonte: 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 livro Night Lamp
Fonte: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 3, section 1 (p. 37)
Jack Vance livro The Gray Prince
“The mourning of defeated peoples, while pathetic and tragic, is usually futile,” said Kelse.
Fonte: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 16 (p. 159)
Jack Vance livro The Gray Prince
Fonte: 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 livro The Gray Prince
Fonte: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 15 (p. 152)
Jack Vance livro The Gray Prince
Fonte: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 4 (p. 49)
Jack Vance livro The Gray Prince
Fonte: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 4 (p. 48)
“Often their grievances were real; often they complained from sheer petulance.”
Jack Vance livro The Gray Prince
Fonte: 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 livro The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph
The Howling Bounders (p. 56)
Short fiction, The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)
Jack Vance livro The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph
The Unspeakable McInch (p. 39; all ellipses in the original)
Short fiction, The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)
“I’d rather be a live pessimist than a dead comedian.”
Fonte: Short fiction, Future Tense (1964), Sail 25 (p. 93)
Fonte: Short fiction, Future Tense (1964), Sail 25 (p. 84)
Fonte: Short fiction, Future Tense (1964), Dodkin’s Job (p. 15)