Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of — Jack Vance

"“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.”"

"“I think that I will not answer that question,” he said at last. “I would create as many false images as there were ears to hear me.” “Half as many,” Clissum pointed out delicately."

"“I have heard your name mentioned.” “Probably as a high-flying free-wheeling financial hell-raiser.” “I believe the term ‘unscrupulous blackguard’ was used,” said Ridolph."

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

"IF THERE BE HERE LESSON OR MORAL, IT LIES BEYOND THE COMPETENCE OF HIM WHO INSCRIBES THIS RECORD."

"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible."

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

"we are engaged in a grim experiment never before attempted. We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effect. These exposures now begin at or before birth and-unless we change our methods-will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the result will be, because we have no previous experience to guide us."

"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness"

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"“We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”"

"I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and Id rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am."