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

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.

The life we've been leading couldn't last forever. It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

Nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.

Beauty compelled admiration and erotic yearning; such was its organic function. But never by itself could it command love.

If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.

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.