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.

Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.

Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often prove invaluable.

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

How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

Vance has a genius in evoking the beauty of strangeness, the strangeness of beauty.

I suspect that the word (art) was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.