I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.

I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.

If there were no such creatures as minstrel-maidens, it would be necessary to invent them.

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

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.

Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party whether he realizes it or not must always come out the worse.

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.