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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.