The Demon Princes Quotes

“Uncertainty hurts more than ignorance.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly over-zealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption … The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Behind him was the loom of movement; ahead a furtive shifting. Gersen turned, in time to look into a horrid blood-red face with poisonous blue cheeks. Hildemar Dasce’s arm descended; a great weight curled over Gersen’s head; lightning exploded inside his skull. He tottered and fell to his knees. Dasce leaned over him. Gersen tried to dodge. The world reeled and toppled; he saw Suthiro grinning like a sick hyena, with his hand to the girl’s neck. Dasce struck again, and the world went dim. Gersen had time for an instant of bitter self-reproach, before another thunderous buffet extinguished his consciousness.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Deeming the unsubstantiated dogma of a localized religious cult to be an undignified and unsuitable base on which to erect the chronology of galactic man, the members of this convention hereby declare that time shall now be reckoned from the year 2000 A.D. (Old System), which becomes the year 0. The revolution of Earth about Sol remains the standard annual unit. — Declaration at the Oikumenical Convention for the Standardization of Units and Meters”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“I dare not kill you. But I can break more bones, and you will walk sideways like a crab.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Sir Julian, exercising his prerogatives, named the planets for boyhood heroes: Lord Kitchener, William Gladstone, Archbishop Rollo Gore, Edythe MacDevott, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Carlyle, William Kircudbright, Samuel B. Gorsham, Sir Robert Peel, and the like. But Sir Julian was to be deprived of his privilege. He telegraphed ahead the news of his return to Maudley Space Station, together with a description of the Concourse and the names he had bestowed upon the members of this magnificent group. The list passed through the hands of an obscure young clerk, one Roger Pilgham, who rejected Sir Julian’s nominations in disgust. To each of the twenty-six planets he assigned a letter of the alphabet and hurriedly supplied new names: Alphanor, Barleycorn, Chrysanthe, Diogenes, Elfland, Fiame, Goshen, Hardacres, Image, Jezebel, Krokinole, Lyonnesse, Madagascar, Nowhere, Olliphane, Pilgham, Quinine, Raratonga, Somewhere, Tantamount, Unicorn, Valisande, Walpurgis, Xion, Ys and Zacaranda — the names derived from legend, myth, romance, his own whimsy.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Everyone is the same,” he told himself. “Anxious to arrive. And when they leave, wondering why they came.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Smade’s patrons were diverse: explorers, locaters, Jarnell technicians, private agents in search of lost men or stolen treasure, more rarely an IPCC representative, or “weasel”, in the argot of the Beyond. Others were folk more dire, and these were of as many sorts as there were crimes to be named. Making a virtue of necessity, Smade presented the same face to all.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Eat and drink without stint. He who can and does pay is a customer. He who cannot and does not pay is a guest of the establishment.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“From Life, Volume III, by Unspiek, Baron Bodissey: I am constantly startled and often amused by the diverse attitudes toward wealth to be found among the peoples of the Oikumene. Some societies equate affluence with criminal skill; for others wealth represents the gratitude of society for the performance of valuable services. My own concepts in this regard are easy and clear, and I am sure that the word ‘simplistic’ will be used by my critics. These folk are callow and turgid of intellect; I am reassured by their howls and yelps. For present purposes I exclude criminal wealth, the garnering of which needs no elaboration, and a gambler’s wealth which is tinsel. In regard, then, to wealth: Luxury and privilege are the perquisites of wealth. This would appear a notably bland remark, but is much larger than it seems. If one listens closely, he hears deep and far below the mournful chime of inevitability. To achieve wealth, one generally must thoroughly exploit at least three of the following five attributes: Luck. Toil, persistence, courage. Self-denial. Short-range intelligence: cunning, improvisational ability. Long-range intelligence: planning, the perception of trends. These attributes are common; anyone desiring privilege and luxury can gain the precursory wealth by making proper use of his native competence. In some societies poverty is considered a pathetic misfortune, or noble abnegation, hurriedly to be remedied by use of public funds. Other more stalwart societies think of poverty as a measure of the man himself. The critics respond: What an unutterable ass is this fellow Unspiek! I am reduced to making furious scratches and crotchets with my pen! — Lionel Wistofer, in The Monstrator I am poor; I admit it! Am I then a churl or a noddy? I deny it with all the vehemence of my soul! I take my bite of seed-cake and my sip of tea with the same relish as any paunchy plutocrat with bulging eyes and grease running from his mouth as he engulfs ortolans in brandy, Krokinole oysters, filet of Darango Five-Horn! My wealth is my shelf of books! My privileges are my dreams! — Sistie Fael, in The Outlook … He moves me to tooth-chattering wrath; he has inflicted upon me, personally, a barrage of sheer piffle, and maundering insult which cries out to the Heavens for atonement. I will thrust my fist down his loquacious maw; better, I will horsewhip him on the steps of his club. If he has no club, I hereby invite him to the broad and convenient steps of the Senior Quill-drivers, although I must say that the Inksters maintain a superior bar, and this shall be my choice since, after trouncing the old fool, I will undoubtedly ask him in for a drink. — McFarquhar Kenshaw, in The Gaean”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Somewhere there is mystery. It impels one to theosophy: to the worship of a space-god, or a god of light.” “Theory dissolves the mystery, though it lays bare a cryptic new stratum. Quite likely there is an endless set of these layers, mystery below mystery.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Lens Larque is said to be enamoured of the whip; he considers it a trusty friend and a convenient instrument for the punishment of his enemies. He uses it often to this end, judging it preferable to other methods. At Sadabra he owns a great house with a semi-circular room where he sits to take his victual: great heaps of hork and pummigum* consumed with tankards of must. For savor he keeps by his side a fine short-handled whip, with a lash twelve and a half feet long. The pommel is ivory and engraved with the whip’s name: PANAK. The reference has never been elucidated, to this writer’s knowledge. The lash terminates in a bifurcated flap of leather four inches long: the ‘scorpion’. Around the wall stand Lens Larque’s enemies, manacled to rings and naked as eggs. To the buttocks of each is pasted a heart-shaped target three inches in diameter. To enliven his meal Lens Larque attempts to snap off the targets with the flutter of his whip, and his skill is said to be fine.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“The critics discuss Baron Bodissey’s Life: A monumental work if you like monuments … One is irresistibly put in mind of the Laocoön group, with the good baron contorted against the coils of common sense, and the more earnest of his readers likewise endeavoring to disengage themselves. — Pancretic Review, St. Stephen, Boniface Ponderously the great machine ingests its bales of lore; grinding, groaning, shuddering, it brings forth its product: small puffs of acrid vari-colored vapor. — Excalibur,, Patris, Krokinole Six volumes of rhodomontade and piffle. — Academia, London, Earth — Egregious, ranting, boorish, unacceptable — — The Rigellian, Avente, Alphanor — Sneers jealously at the careers of better men … Impossible not to feel honest anger. — Galactic Quarterly, Baltimore, Earth — Tempting to picture Baron Bodissey at work in the Arcadian habitat he promulgates, surrounded by admiring goat-herds. — El Orchide, Serle, Quantique”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“From ‘Kokor Hekkus the Killing Machine’, Chapter IV of The Demon Princes, by Caril Carphen (Elucidarian Press, New Wexford, Aloysius, Vega): If Malagate the Woe can be characterized by the single word ‘grim’ and Howard Alan Treesong by ‘incomprehensible’, then Lens Larque, Viole Falushe and Kokor Hekkus all lay claim to the word ‘fantastic’. Which one exceeds the other two in ‘fantasy’? It is an amusing if profitless speculation. Consider Viole Falushe’s Palace of Love, Lens Larque’s monument, the vast and incredible outrages Kokor Hekkus has visited upon humanity: such extravagances are impossible to comprehend, let alone compare. It is fair to say, however, that Kokor Hekkus has captured the popular imagination with his grotesque and eerie humor. Let us listen to what he has to say in an abstract from the famous telephoned address, The Theory and Practice of Terror, to the students of Cervantes University: “… To produce the maximum effect, one must identify and intensify those basic dreads already existing within the subject. It is a mistake to regard the fear of death as the most extreme fear. I find a dozen other types to be more poignant, such as: The fear of inability to protect a cherished dependent. The fear of disesteem. The fear of noisome contact. The fear of being made afraid. “My goal is to produce a ‘nightmare’ quality of fright, and to maintain it over an appreciable duration. A nightmare is the result of the under-mind exploring its most sensitive areas, and so serves as an index for the operator. Once an apparently sensitive area is located the operator to the best of his ingenuity employs means to emphasize, to dramatize this fear, then augment it by orders of magnitude. If the subject fears heights, the operator takes him to the base of a tall cliff, attaches him to a slender, obviously fragile or frayed cord and slowly raises him up the face of the cliff, not too far and not too close to the face. Scale must be emphasized, together with the tantalizing but infeasible possibility of clinging to the vertical surface. The lifting mechanism should be arranged to falter and jerk. To intensify claustrophobic dread the subject is conveyed into a pit or excavation, inserted head-foremost into a narrow and constricted tunnel which slants downward, and occasionally changes direction by sharp and cramping angles. Whereupon the pit or excavation is filled and subject must proceed ahead, for the most part in a downward direction.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“From Human Institutions, by Prade (Text-book, tenth and eleventh grades): Interchange is another of the strange accommodations necessary to the functioning of what we have termed ‘the total mechanism’. It is a fact that kidnapping for ransom is a common crime, owing to the ease by which escape via spaceship can be effected. In the past the system for paying ransom often broke down, owing to the hatreds and suspicions inevitably generated, and many boys and girls were never returned to their homes. Hence the necessity for Interchange, which is to be found on Sasani, a planet in the near Beyond, and functions as a broker between kidnapper and those paying ransom. Interchange guarantees good faith in the transaction. The kidnapper receives his money minus the Interchange fee; the victim is restored safely to his home … Interchange is officially denounced but practically tolerated; since it is believed that conditions would be far worse in its absence. Occasionally certain groups discuss the feasibility of commissioning the IPCC to stage a raid upon Interchange; somehow nothing ever comes of it.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“A detached attitude toward the problems of others is not illegal.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Farmer hauled before constabulary court after attack upon the person of Bose Coggindell, Fellow of the Institute, 54th Degree, in self-justification: “These chaps have it easy. They lean back in their chairs and say, ‘Suffer, you’ll love it. Do it the hard way. Sweat.’ They’d like me to hitch my wife to a plow, the way it used to be done. So I showed him what I thought of what he calls ‘detachment’.” Justice (after fining farmer 75 SVU):”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“From Introduction to The Demon Princes, by Caril Carphen (Elucidarian Press, New Wexford, Aloysius, Vega): It may well be asked how, from so many thieves, kidnappers, pirates, slavers and assassins within and beyond the Pale, one can isolate five individuals and identify them as ‘Demon Princes’. The author, while conceding to a certain degree of arbitrariness, can nevertheless in good conscience define the criteria which in his mind establish the Five as arch-fiends and overlords of evil. First: the Demon Princes are typified by grandeur. Consider the manner in which Kokor Hekkus gained his cognomen ‘The Killing Machine’, or Attel Malagate’s ‘plantation’ on Grabhorne Planet (a civilization of his own definition), or Lens Larque’s astounding monument to himself, or Viole Falushe’s Palace of Love. Certainly these are not the works of ordinary men, nor the results of ordinary vices (though Viole Falushe is said to be physically vain and in certain exploits of Kokor Hekkus there is the quaintly horrid quality of a small boy’s experiments with an insect). Secondly: these men are constructive geniuses, motivated not by malice, perversity, greed, or misanthropy, but by violent inner purposes, which are for the most part shrouded and obscure. Why does Howard Alan Treesong glory in chaos? What are the goals of the inscrutable Attel Malagate, or that fascinating flamboyant Kokor Hekkus? Thirdly: each of the Demon Princes is a mystery; each insists on anonymity and facelessness. Even to close associates these men are unknown; each is friendless, loveless (we can safely discount the self-indulgences of the sybaritical Viole Falushe). Fourthly: and obverse to the above, is a quality best to be described as absolute pride, absolute self-sufficiency. Each considers the relationship between himself and the balance of humanity as no more than a confrontation of equals. Fifthly: and ample in itself, I cite the historic conclave of 1500 at Smade’s Tavern (to be discussed in Chapter One) where the five acknowledged themselves, grudgingly perhaps, as peers, and defined their various areas of interest. Ipsi dixerunt!”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“From ‘How the Planets Trade’, by Ignace Wodlecki: Cosmopolis, September, 1509: In all commercial communities the prevalence or absence of counterfeit money, spurious bills of exchange, forged notes-of-hand, or any of a dozen other artifices to augment the value of blank paper is a matter of great concern. Across the Oikumene precise duplication and reproducing machines are readily available; and only meticulous safeguards preclude the chronic debasement of our currency. These safeguards are three: first, the single negotiable currency is the Standard Value Unit, or SVU, notes for which, in various denominations, are issued only by the Bank of Sol, the Bank of Rigel and the Bank of Vega. Second, each genuine note is characterized by a ‘quality of authenticity’. Thirdly, the three banks make widely available the so-called ‘fake-meter’. This is a pocket device which, when a counterfeit note is passed through a slot, sounds a warning buzzer. As all small boys know, attempts to disassemble the fake-meter are futile; as soon as the case is damaged, it destroys itself. Regarding the ‘quality of authenticity’ there is naturally a good deal of speculation. Apparently in certain key areas, a particular molecular configuration is introduced, resulting in a standard reactance of some nature: electrical capacity? magnetic permeability? photo-absorption or reflectance? isotopic variation? radioactive doping? a combination of some or all of these qualities? Only a handful of persons know and they won’t tell.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“It seems,” said Gersen, “that troubles are catching up with you.” Dasce spat at him. “Fah! What more can you do to me? Do you think I fear death? I live only out of hate.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“We renew our acquaintance,” said Gersen in a pleasant voice. Dasce said nothing.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Detteras said thoughtfully, “You know, I think it only fair that you leave the filament here. Why victimize us?” “I don’t plan to be killed, Mr. Detteras.” “Your plans might go awry.” “If so, your troubles will seem very trivial in comparison to mine. May I have my weapons?”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“If you are careless enough to be killed,” said Kelle, “you put us to enormous inconvenience.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Malagate’s activities are primarily extortion and slavery. In the Conclave of 1500 at Smade’s Planet, where five Demon Princes and a score of lesser operators met to define and circumscribe their activities, Malagate was allotted that sector of the Beyond centered on Ferrier’s Cluster. It includes over a hundred settlements, towns and vicinities, upon all of which Malagate levies assessments. He rarely encounters protest or complaint, for he need merely cite the example of Mount Pleasant, a town of 5000 persons, which declined to meet his demands. In the year 1499 Malagate invited four other Princes to join him. The junta swept down upon the town, captured and enslaved the entire population”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Mr. Spock is a criminal,” said Gersen.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“The front door opened; Gersen whirled. In the opening stood a middle-aged man no larger than a boy of ten. His head was round; his eyes brimmed with curiosity, flicking over Gersen, around the room. He had large features, long pointed ears, a heavy protuberant mouth: a Highland Imp from the Highlands of Krokinole, one of the more specialized races of the Concourse.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Twenty-three red dwarfs were listed. Eight of these were double. Eleven hung solitary in space, forlorn feeble sparks. Four were accompanied by planets, eight planets in all. These four Gersen scrutinized with special care. Reluctantly he was forced to conclude that none of these planets could conceivably be considered habitable. Five of the planets were too hot, one was completely awash in liquid methane, two were too massive to allow human toleration of the gravity. Gersen’s mouth drooped in disappointment. Nothing. Still, the page at one time had been earnestly consulted: there must be information here which Dasce needed or valued. Gersen tore the page from the book.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes

“Gersen sipped suspiciously at the arrack. The verbal pyrotechnics might be intended as a distraction, a device to diminish his wariness. He concentrated on the arrack, senses keen for the faintest off-flavor. Detteras had poured both drinks from the same flask, he had offered Gersen a choice of three distillations, he had taken up glasses without seeming calculation. There existed, nonetheless, enormous scope for ruse, which no normal vigilance could prevent … But the drink was innocent, so Gersen’s tongue and nasal passages, trained on Sarkovy, assured him. He focused his attention upon Detteras and the previous remark.”
― Jack Vance, Demon Princes