On Humanity’s Highest Aim

“What gorgeous souls have vanished into the buried ages; what marvellous creatures are lost past the remotest memory … Nevermore will there be the like; now in the last fleeting moments, humanity festers rich as rotten fruit. Rather than master and overpower our world, our highest aim is to cheat it through sorcery.”

From Jack Vance, The Dying Earth

On Goblins and Gnomes

"Goblins are to us, very much what rats are to you. Only worse, because they are very clever. And only better, because there are, in these parts, very few! We thought there were none left. Long ago we had great trouble with them. That was about ... 1453, I believe. But, we got the help of the gnomes, who are their greatest enemies, and cleared them out."

Father Christmas
J. R. R. Tolkien, Letters from Father Christmas

On a Surfeit of Ease

A surfeit of honey cloys the tongue; a surfeit of wine addles the brain; so a surfeit of ease guts a man of strength.

From Jack Vance, The Dying Earth

On Frankenstein's Moniker