The inscrutability [of economics] is perhaps not unintentional. It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.

Somebody else's ignorance is bliss.

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.

What is an evil man? The man is evil who coerces obedience to his private ends, destroys beauty, produces pain, extinguishes life.

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.

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's Lyonesse books are the greatest fairy tale of the twentieth century.