Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes & Sayings

If you ever have to make a choice between learning and inspiration, boy, choose learning. It works more of the time. — Lois McMaster Bujold

If only the president hadn't tried to dodge, he would have been all right. As it was, the toe of her jackboot caught him in the groin with perfect unplanned accuracy. His mouth made a soundless "O" and he went down behind the rostrum. Cordelia, — Lois McMaster Bujold

There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Are you sure this isn't instant boots? asked Cordelia sadly, for in color, taste, and smell they closely resembled pulverized shoe leather pressed into wafers. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I don't want power. I just object to idiots having power over me. — Lois McMaster Bujold

But why, in God the Father's name, should they want to destroy Athos? Is Cetaganda - controlled by women or something?" A — Lois McMaster Bujold

When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference. — Lois McMaster Bujold

(Watching her) was a little like watching water lilies; rather more like smelling a dinner he was not allowed to eat. Was it possible to be starved for so long as to forget the taste of food, for the pangs of hunger to burn out like ash? It seemed so. But both the pleasure and the pain were his heart's secret, here. He was put in mind, suddenly, of the soil at the edge of a recovering blight; the weedy bedraggled look of it, unlovely yet hopeful. Blight was a numb gray thing, without sensation. Did the return of green life hurt? Odd thought. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Surrounded by them all, she was reminded of the old parental curse - May you have six children just like you. Except that this curse seemed to have gone awry. Miles would have reveled at six children just like himself; he'd have known exactly what to do. Instead, he seemed to have received six children, none in the least like himself, and furthermore, each one different from all the others. As parental revenges went, this was actually much better. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they'll be called on to do before the next chance. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Oh, what did she finally decide on?" asked the pilot. "At one point she told me she was thinking of sending the bride a barbed-wire choke chain for Miles, but was afraid it might be misinterpreted." "No — Lois McMaster Bujold

If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way. — Lois McMaster Bujold

There will be grace and forgiveness enough, old dog, even for you. I pray you will spare me a drink from that cup, when it overflows for you.
- Miles Vorkosigan — Lois McMaster Bujold

It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you were aiming for. — Lois McMaster Bujold

A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So you're saying that I could die at any moment!" "Yes. And this is different from your life yesterday in what way? — Lois McMaster Bujold

Some attitudes couldn't be changed, they just had to be outlived — Lois McMaster Bujold

At a growl from Kety, the procession paused in front of the entering Barrayarans. Miles heard Kety's voice, icy-cold: "Congratulations, Lord Vorpatril. I hope you may be fortunate enough to survive your victory." "Huh?" said Ivan. Oh, — Lois McMaster Bujold

Gregor grinned. "Congratulations to you, too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you've changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation." Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? "Let's try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness." "With all my heart," Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com. Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. "It's not my fault!" "Yes, it is," said Ivan. "It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it." "No, it wasn't. It was yours. You're the one who dragooned me into attending the damned state dinner in the first place." "I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me." "Oh. So it's all her fault. Good. I can live with that." Ivan — Lois McMaster Bujold

Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Could he stop denying himself, and deny others instead? He tested the phrases on his tongue. No, you are wrong, all of you, Temple and Court and folk in the streets. You always were wrong. I am not ... am not ... what? And are these the only terms I can think in, these shouted nos? Ah, habit. — Lois McMaster Bujold

If you think safety is expensive, try pricing an accident, as the sign says. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I'd always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at ease before his own hearth. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you. — Lois McMaster Bujold

And the Bastard grant us ... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. — Lois McMaster Bujold

He was beginning to wonder if he was trying to rescue the dragon. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles paused at the door. "Ah - about Tav Calhoun - " "Yes?" "You know that janitor's closet on the second level?" "Vaguely." She looked at him in unease. "Please be sure somebody checks it tomorrow morning. But don't go up there before then." "I wouldn't dream of it," she assured him faintly. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are. — Lois McMaster Bujold

For a while, I thought I was going mad. At last, I became reconciled to my despair.
The medications helped, too, I thought, sir. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. — Lois McMaster Bujold

If only you were willing to betray a trust, why, the most amazing range of possible actions opened up to you. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Emperors per se did not unnerve Miles ... Emperor Gregor had been raised along with Miles practically as his foster-brother; somewhere in the back of Miles's mind the term emperor was coupled with such identifiers as somebody to play hide-and-seek with. In this context those hidden assumptions could be a psychosocial land mine. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So the unknown breeds dragons in map margins, she reflected... — Lois McMaster Bujold

If there's no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept? — Lois McMaster Bujold

Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came. And that they will return when the earth is entirely cleansed of its spawn. If you believe in gods."
"Do you?"
"I believe they are not here, yes. It's a faith of sorts. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I'll bet. I . . ." He couldn't say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. "I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven't had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal. — Lois McMaster Bujold

You will," said Vorkosigan wearily, "sit in that fortified palace that half the engineers are going to be tied up constructing, and party in it, and let your men do your dying for you, until you've bought your ground by the sheer weight of the corpses piled on it, because that's the kind of soldiering your mentor has taught you. And then send bulletins home about your great victory. Maybe you can have the casualty lists declared top secret." "Aral, careful," warned Vorhalas, shocked. — Lois McMaster Bujold

The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded. — Lois McMaster Bujold

In fifteen years, all those disturbing biological blobs would be out on Kareenburg's streets, wearing strange fashions, listening to annoying music, and disagreeing politically with their beleaguered parents. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So, Lord Auditor Coz. Did you find some fun?

Do I look cheerful?

More like manic.

It's a joy, Ivan, an absolute joy. The ImpSec internal Security system is lying to me. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Those five days we were locked up together at Vasa Luigi's, that wasn't an effect of the imprisonment, was it? That's the way you really are, when you're well?"
"Pretty much," he admitted.
"I've always wondered what adult hyperactives did for a living. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Were you BORN inhuman or did you grow so by degrees?! MS, MD, PHD? — Lois McMaster Bujold

Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Pen wanted to ask if becoming a sorcerer made a man more, or less, attractive as a husband, but he had an uneasy feeling that he could guess. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Send a patroller to check," said Miles a little tightly. Remembering he was supposed to be a diplomat, he added, "If you please." Teris — Lois McMaster Bujold

Cordelia faced one more climb onto that torture-device for humans and horses called a saddle. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view? — Lois McMaster Bujold

I always thought my parents could fix anything. Now it's my turn. Dear God, how did this happen? — Lois McMaster Bujold

He was shaken by an unwelcome insight. Lives did not add as integers. They added as infinities. — Lois McMaster Bujold

A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Wikipedia is so dangerous. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Think if you lent me a razor now, for me to cut my throat with, it would save ever so many steps. Please Your Grace." The Provincara snorted. "Good, Cazaril, good. I do so like a man who doesn't underestimate his situation. — Lois McMaster Bujold

She rolled the mysterious plunkin across in front of the hearth and stared at it. It still looked disconcertingly like a severed head. "What do we do with this?"
Dag sat cross-legged and smiled
not much of a smile, but a start. "Lots of choices. They all come down to plunkin. You can eat it raw in slices, peel it and cut it up and cook it alone or in a stew, boil it whole, wrap it in leaves and cook it in campfire coals, stick a sword through it and turn it on a spit, or, very popular, feed it to the pigs and eat the pigs. It's very sustaining. Some say you could live forever on plunkin and rainwater. Others say it would just seem like forever. — Lois McMaster Bujold

If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also? — Lois McMaster Bujold

Damn it," he mumbled apologetically, "things like this never happened to Vorthalia the Bold."
She raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "How do you know? The histories of those times were all written by minstrels and poets. You try and think of a word that rhymes with 'bleeding ulcer — Lois McMaster Bujold

His avid look made her feel not beautiful and loved, but ugly and ashamed. How could you be violated by mere eyes? How could you be lovers with someone, and yet feel every moment alone with them intruded upon your privacy, your dignity? — Lois McMaster Bujold

What's in the box? Not a severed head - again - I trust?" It seemed too small for that, fortunately. Cordelia's gray eyes glinted. "Now, now, Oliver. Bring home one dismembered body part, once, mind you, once, and people get twitchy about checking your luggage ever after. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I am not schizoid. A little manic-depressive, maybe."
"'Know thyself.'"
"We try, sir. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Other than that, how was Kyril Island, Ensign Vorkosigan?" inquired the Count. "You didn't vid home much, your mother noticed." "I was busy. Lessee. The climate was ferocious, the terrain was lethal, a third of the population including my immediate superior was dead drunk most of the time. The average IQ equaled the mean temperature in degrees cee, there wasn't a woman for five hundred kilometers in any direction, and the base commander was a homicidal psychotic. Other than that, it was lovely. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I have to find a boat. Somehow. — Lois McMaster Bujold

You should have fallen in love with a happy man, if you wanted happiness. But no, you had to fall for the breathtaking beauty of pain.
Cordelia's Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold — Lois McMaster Bujold

How did I get into this mess? Miles isn't even here. -Ivan — Lois McMaster Bujold

Money, power, sex ... and elephants. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Cordelia shook her head helplessly. "You would. A vote. Right." She buried her face in her hands a moment, and sobbed a laugh. "Why?" she asked through her fingers. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Pym!" The Countess spotted a new victim, and her voice went a little dangerous. "I seconded you to look after Miles. Would you care to explain this scene?"
There was a thoughtful pause. In a voice of simple honesty, Pym replied, "No, Milady. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Growing up, I have discovered over time, is rather like housework: never finished. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you. — Lois McMaster Bujold

That civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes with the third-level formal style of your dress, you know. — Lois McMaster Bujold

What you are is a question only you can answer. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Quinn keyed up a three-dimensional holovid schematic of Vega Station and its neighbors. The jump routes were represented by sparkling jagged lines between hazy spheres of local space systems. — Lois McMaster Bujold

We did it," he muttered to Ekaterin, now perching on the chair arm. "Why didn't anybody stop us? Why aren't there more regulations about this sort of thing? What fool in their right mind would put me in charge of a baby? Two babies? — Lois McMaster Bujold

How does a kidnapping grab you?" She giggled inexplicably. "Absolutely not!" "Oh, you're going to make an exception in this case," she predicted with confidence, even verve. "Elli . . ." he growled in warning. She controlled her humor with a deep breath, though her eyes remained alight. "But Miles - our mysterious and wealthy strangers want to hire Admiral Naismith to kidnap Lord Miles Vorkosigan from the Barrayaran embassy." * — Lois McMaster Bujold

But I know you have courage, and I know you have will. The rest is just picking yourself up and ramming into the wall again and again until it falls down. You get a bloody forehead, so what? You can do it, I swear you can. — Lois McMaster Bujold

She inhaled the complex odors, from vegetation, water vapor, industrial waste gases. Barrayar permitted an amazing amount of air dumping, as if . . . well, air was free, here. Nobody measured it; there were no air processing and filtration fees. Did these people even realize how rich they were? All the air they could breathe, just by stepping outdoors, taken for granted as casually as they took frozen water falling from the sky. — Lois McMaster Bujold

It's just a thing. You deal with it."
"As in, one damn thing after another?"
"Yes, very like. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Desperately, Cordelia stuck her foot through the whatchamacallit foot-holder, stirrup, grabbed, and heaved. The saddle slid slowly around the horse's belly, and Cordelia with it, till she was clinging underneath among a forest of horse legs. She fell to the ground with a thump and scrambled out of the way. The horse twisted its neck around and peered at her, in a dismay much milder than her own, then stuck its rubbery lips to the ground and began nibbling up weeds. — Lois McMaster Bujold

You're pleased?" Rosalie, watching her face closely, sat back and smiled. "Or should I say, thrilled? Good! And not completely surprised, I daresay." "Not . . . completely." I just didn't believe it. I chose not to believe it, because . . . because it would have ruined everything. . . . "We were afraid you might find it early days, after Tien and all. But the Baba said he meant to steal a march on all his rivals, your da told Hugo. — Lois McMaster Bujold

They would make her own short body look like a dwarf dragging a curtain. — Lois McMaster Bujold

War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with. — Lois McMaster Bujold

The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I thought you saw meaning in that sort of thing," said Vorkosigan.
"In the abstract. Most days it's just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts. — Lois McMaster Bujold

The good face pain. But the great? They embrace it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Have you ever heard the phrase, Living well is the best revenge?"
"Where I come from, someone's head in a bag is generally considered the best revenge — Lois McMaster Bujold

Your Reverence, I do not hate any man in this world enough to inflict the results of my prayers upon him. — Lois McMaster Bujold

All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I don't believe in prolonging agonies," said Oser. "Rather than watch you enspell the rest of my fleet man by man - while I still possess a fleet to offer - I understand the Dendarii Mercenaries are looking for recruits." It — Lois McMaster Bujold

Aim high. You may still miss the target, but at least you won't shoot your foot off. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I don't duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Read, or you will be missing something extraordinary. — Lois McMaster Bujold

There is this, about being the sparring partner of the best swordsman in Caribastos. I always lost. But if ever I meet the third best swordsman in Caribastos, he's going to be in very deep trouble. — Lois McMaster Bujold

It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. — Lois McMaster Bujold

You have to be careful who you let define your good. — Lois McMaster Bujold

There was no limit to what one man might do, if he gave all, and held back nothing. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Between one breath and the next, the vision took him. It came not as a chain of reason, more words words words, but as a blinding image, all complete in its first moment, inherent, holistic, gestalt, inspired. Every hour of his life from now on would be but the linear exploration of its fullness. — Lois McMaster Bujold

But pain ... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain? — Lois McMaster Bujold

The real unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, without anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.
But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present - they are real. — Lois McMaster Bujold