Jack Vance Quotes
"Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Travel, Money, Son, Now, Old, Right, Want)
"It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and surveillance."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Office)
"In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Fact, Job)
"I'd never been published when I was young."
- Jack Vance
"I worked for half a cent a word. I'm not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things."
- Jack Vance
(Related: First, Word, Writer, Years)
"I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Reading)
"I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Time)
"I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Science, Fiction)
"I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Thought, Airplanes, Automobiles)
"So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times."
- Jack Vance
"I never worked in an office in my life."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Life, Office)
"A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Environment)
"I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Movies, Words)
"I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Writing)
"I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Books, Want)
"But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Books, Influence)
"But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Science, Fiction)
"But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Jobs)
"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."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Computers, Blind, Writing)
"As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Time)
"I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Writing)
"I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to."
- Jack Vance
"This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I'm getting some credit for what I've done. Which is gratifying, but it's kind of a little late."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Life, Credit, Flattery, Now)
"There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Influence, Writer)
"Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Imagination, Writer)
"The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway."
- Jack Vance
(Related: Beginning, Ending, Pretty, Want, Writing)
"Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere."
- Jack Vance
"These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything."
- Jack Vance
"Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write."
- Jack Vance