Cugel's Saga Quotes

“I give dignity second place to expedience,” said Cugel.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

“I would offer congratulations were it not for this tentacle gripping my leg.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“I will say little more. Cugel, you have small acquaintance with the trade, but I take it as a good sign that you have come to me for training, since my nethods are not soft. You will learn or you will drown, or suffer a blow of the flukes, or worse, incur my displeasure. But you have started well and I will teach you well. Never think me harsh, or over-bearing; you will be in self-defeating error! I am stern, yes, even severe, but in the end, when I acknowledge you a worminger, you will thank me."
"Good news indeed," muttered Cugel”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“Cugel is a man of discernment!" declared Bunderwal. "I would rate him an applicant of fair to good quality, and I urge you to ignore his long spatulate fingers which I last noticed on Larkin the baby-stealer. There is a significant difference between the two: Larkin has been hanged and Cugel has not been hanged.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“There is never more to experience than this single 'now', which recurs at an interval of exactly one second in length.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“I consider myself the single honest man in a world of rogues and blackguards, present company excepted. In these conditions it is hard to accumulate wealth.”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“An inch of foreknowledge is worth ten miles of afterthought”
― Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

“aloof from the society of ordinary mortals,”
― Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

“You sing siren songs of inducement!”
― Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

“Very well then ! Look along the dock yonder ; you will notice three persons standing under the street - lamp . All are men . The faces of each are hidden behind hoods and veils . For this precaution there is reason : the ebullience of the local females . So vivacious is their nature that men dare not display their faces for fear of provoking ungovernable impulses . Female voyeurs go so far as to peek through windows of the clubhouse where the men gather to drink beer , sometimes with their faces partially exposed .”
― Jack Vance, Cugel's Saga

“give dignity second place to expedience”
― Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight