40 quotes
Recall the instructor at the Academy: “What is Man, young aspirants? Man is an animal that trades…”
Rork! (1965)
The ceremony was long and intricate, probably none of them could have explained why half of it was done, and the explanations for the other half would probably have been thoroughly incorrect.
The Phoenix and the Mirror (1969)
In general I find little girls enchanting. What a shame they grow up to be big girls and make our lives as miserable as we allow them, and oft-times more.
Or All the Seas with Oysters (1962)
Though you expel Nature with a pitchfork, she will always return.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
Hmm...hmm. A stag hunt. To what elaborate lengths the equestrian classes go in order to draw out the simple business of butchering venison.
The Phoenix and the Mirror (1969)
“Follow me, men! I’m right behind you!”
Masters of the Maze (1965)
Everything meant something, still, some meanings were revealed sooner than others. And that some were seemingly never revealed in no way disproved the fact.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
Clearly this was no time to ask if they should first define their terms. Nor, for that matter, had Socrates had to define the bowl of hemlock.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
It’s not a matter of who runs first or who runs last. It’s merely a matter of who gets caught.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
Seven cities claimed blind Homer, dead,
Through which blind Homer, living, begged his bread.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
It was but that, seeing him and so imagining that something about him was otherwise, automatically they feared him.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
It had not been precisely a fruitful meeting, but it had been a long one.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
It was a distinction without a difference.
Vergil in Averno (1987)
“How is your new woman? Your new-est one, I sh’d say.”
Jack shrugged. “Good enough. They all got the same thing.”
“Yeh-es,” Jeff nodded, judiciously. “But some of ’m’s got more of it than others.”
Masters of the Maze (1965)
And then in that, admittedly magnificent, abrupt moment you saw what I concede without argument was the face of rather an attractive wench, and—Zeus! you weren’t thinking, man—you were simply reacting. It wasn’t your heart, it was your codpiece that the impulse came from!
The Phoenix and the Mirror (1969)
It is not a very interesting night market, anyway. No wonderful things are sold there, though often one wonders, next day, how one could have bought them...
Vergil in Averno (1987)
“Don’t you see?”
They did not see. This is the way things were done. Things were done this way. Things weren’t done another way. You did things the way you did things. You didn’t do things the way you didn’t do things.
Rork! (1965)
Suppose Sisyphus to have been acquitted his need of forever toiling up his hill in Hell, would he have made the last journey in joy? Or would mere fatigue have extinguished all other emotion, as a torch extinguished in a sconce?
Vergil in Averno (1987)
Well, rather an ague than a pox. A pox is something one wishes on editors…strange breed, editors. The females all have names like Lulu Ammabelle Smith or Minnie Lundquist Bloom, and the males have little horns growing out of their brows.
Or All the Seas with Oysters (1962)
Things were seldom what they seemed. People feared to tempt powers spiritual or temporal or illegal by displays of well being, and the brick screens in from of (or behind, depending on whether one were going in or going out) the doors blocked both the gaze of the curious and the path of demons. Demons can travel only in straight lines; it is the sons of men whose ways are devious.
Or All the Seas with Oysters (1962)