Jack Vance Quotes

"As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time."

"But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection."

"But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me."

"I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast."

"It's just I wanted to get myself in a line of work where I didn't have a boss, where I didn't have to show up any place at any particular time."

"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."

"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."

"I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do."

"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."

"Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write."

"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."

"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."

"I don't have much vanity. I just know what I do. I just do because I'm capable of doing it and do it easily without any pretentiousness."

"I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all."

"I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet."

"I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough."

"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."

"In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you."

"I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book."

"I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to."