Lois Bujold Quotes & Sayings

He let his head rest against the crisp cloth of her uniform jacket a moment longer. She shifted, her arms reaching toward him. Was she about to hug him? If she did, Miles decided, he was going to grab her and kiss her right there. And then see what happened - Behind him, Galeni's office doors swished open. Elli and he both flinched away from each other, Elli coming to parade rest with a toss of her short dark curls, Miles just standing and cursing inwardly at the interruption. He — Lois McMaster Bujold

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

Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Barrayar is bred in my bones. I cannot shake it, no matter how far I travel. This struggle, God knows, has no honor in it. But exile, for no other motive than ease - that would be to give up all hope of honor. The last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Identity. That's my elephant. The thought came with certainty, without the question mark on the end this time. Not fame, exactly, though recognition was some kind of important cement for it. But what you were was what you did. And I did more, oh yes. If a hunger for identity were translated into, say, a hunger for food, he'd be a more fantastic glutton than Mark ever dreamed of being. Is it irrational, to want to be so much, to want so hard it hurts? And how much, then, was enough? — Lois McMaster Bujold

For the courage of her heart, which I saw face down the greatest horrors I know without breaking. For the high and hungry intelligence of her mind, which never stops asking questions, nor thinking about the answers. For the spark of her spirit, which could teach bonfires how to burn. That's three. Enough for going on with. All this is set beside me, and you ask me instead if I want dirt? I do not understand farmers — Lois McMaster Bujold

What is love but delight in another human being? He delights me daily. — 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

As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor — Lois McMaster Bujold

When your young life offered its first disaster, naturally it loomed large. After you'd survived dozens, you basically just told the next one to take a number and get in line. — Lois McMaster Bujold

But gifts can be victories, can't they. It's what you said. The garden could have been your gift, a dowry of talent, skill, and vision. I know it's too late now, but I just wanted to say, it would have been a victory most worthy of our House. Yours to command, Miles Vorkosigan. Ekaterin rested her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes. She regained control of her breathing again in a few gulps. She sat up again, and reread the letter in the fading light. Twice. It neither demanded nor requested nor seemed to anticipate reply. Good, because she doubted she could string two coherent clauses together just now. What did he expect her to make of this? Every sentence that didn't start with I seemed to begin with But. It wasn't just honest, it was naked. With — Lois McMaster Bujold

Well, who wants to die in bed?" "You did, you always said. Of extreme old age, in bed, with somebody's wife." "Mine, by preference," Cazaril — Lois McMaster Bujold

For Berry, you just be there, Whit. Be the one person in the wide green world she doesn't have to explain it to, because you were there and saw it all for yourself. Hand her a clean cloth if she cries or bleeds, and some warm thing for the pain that doubles her over. The time to hold her will come. This day isn't over yet. — Lois McMaster Bujold

the unknown breeds dragons in map margins — Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles was ... the thing is, he was afflicted with a severe birth injury. He grew up pretty much crippled, so he poured all his frustrated energy into his intellect. Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving, the effect was pretty frightening. And it worked for him, so he did it some more. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go: have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier," but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the hatred and envy they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and re-arranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live. — 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

Take heart, sir," Cazaril consoled him. "It is not your destiny today to win a royacy for your son. It is to win an empire for your grandson. — Lois McMaster Bujold

The rather blurred background to the face that formed over the vid plate seemed faintly familiar - ah yes, the Security Ops room at Ryoval Biologicals. Baron Ryoval had arrived personally on that scene as promised. It took only one glance at the dusky, contorted expression on Ryoval's youthful face to fill in the rest of the scenario. Miles folded his hands and smiled innocently. "Good morning, Baron. What can I do for you?" "Die, you little mutant!" Ryoval spat. "You! There isn't going to be a bunker deep enough for you to burrow in. I'll put a price on your head that will have every bounty hunter in the galaxy all over you like a second skin - you'll not eat or sleep - I'll have you - " Yes, — 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

Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Good God, Enrique was writing poetry to her? Yes, and why hadn't he thought of poetry? Besides the obvious reason of his absence of talent in that direction. He wondered if she'd like to read a really clever combat-drop mission plan, instead. Sonnets, damn. All he'd ever come up with in that line were limericks. He — Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles's pause had lasted just a little too long. Genially taking his turn to fill it, Illyan turned to Ekaterin. "Speaking of weddings, Madame Vorsoisson, how long has Miles been courting you? Have you awarded him a date yet? Personally, I think you ought to string him along and make him work for it." A chill flush plunged to the pit of Miles's stomach. Alys bit her lip. Even Galeni winced. Olivia looked up in confusion. "I thought we weren't supposed to mention that yet." Kou, next to her, muttered, "Hush, lovie." Lord Dono, with malicious Vorrutyer innocence, turned to her and inquired, "What weren't we supposed to mention?" "Oh, but if Captain Illyan said it, it must be all right," Olivia concluded. Captain Illyan had his brains blown out last year, thought Miles. He is not all right. All right is precisely what he is not . . . Her gaze crossed Miles's. "Or maybe . . ." Not, Miles finished silently for her. Ekaterin — Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles is ... Miles; close to a force of nature, climbing up out of his own pages and escaping subordination to any opinion of mine. — Lois McMaster Bujold

He wondered how many would ever march home. Better it seemed to export cheese or cloth, but it was true that fortunes were made in the military trade. Though seldom by the soldiers, any more than by the cheeses. — Lois McMaster Bujold

A price is something you get.
A cost is something you lose. — Lois McMaster Bujold

We're just good friends," caroled Miles, and laughed hysterically. He lunged for the comconsole - the guards grabbed for him and missed - and, climbing across the desk, snarled into the vid, "Stay away from her, you little shit! She's mine, you hear, mine, mine, all mine - Quinn, Quinn, beautiful Quinn, Quinn of the evening, beautiful Quinn," he sang off-key as the guards dragged him back. Blows ran him down into silence. "I thought you had him on fast-penta," said the clone to Galen. "We do." "It doesn't sound like fast-penta! — Lois McMaster Bujold

But when he's cut, I bleed. — Lois McMaster Bujold

It's so obviously bogus, no one will look for a second layer of, er, bogusity. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I'd have been a fool not to have thought of it, and a greater fool not to have thought better of it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

One step at a time, I can walk around the world. Watch me. — 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

Of course, compared to Serg, Tien wasn't much worse than foolish and venal. But it was hard to watch. No nine-year-old should have to deal with something this vile, this close to his heart. What will it make him?" "Eventually . . . ten," the Count said. "You do what you have to do. You grow or go under. You have to believe he will grow." Miles — Lois McMaster Bujold

Now, there's this about cynicism, Sergeant. It's the universe's most supine moral position. Real comfortable. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not doing it, and you can lie there and stink to yourself in perfect peace. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart. — Lois McMaster Bujold

When the souls rise up in glory, yours shall not be shunned nor sunderered, but shall be the prize of the gods' gardens. Even your darkness shall be treasured then, and all your pain made holy. — Lois McMaster Bujold

But the herm was gray-faced, lips purple-blue, eyelids fluttering. An IV pump, not dependent upon potentially erratic ship's gravity, infused yellow fluid rapidly into Bel's right arm. The left arm was strapped to a board; plastic tubing filled with blood ran from under a bandage and into a hybrid appliance bound around with quantities of plastic tape. A second tube ran back again, its dark surface moist with condensation. — Lois McMaster Bujold

If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door. — Lois McMaster Bujold

She had switched from counting her years not up from birth, but back from death - a grab-bag of time not growing, but shrinking, use it or lose it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

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

ImpSec certainly hadn't given him any more interesting missions, unless you could call Security Chief Illyan's last curt ". . . and stay out of trouble!" a secret assignment. On — Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. The human mind is the ultimate testing device. You can take all the notes you want on the technical data, anything you forget you can look up again, but this must be engraved on your hearts in letters of fire. There is nothing, nothing, nothing, more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool metal. That's all. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right.
You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her.
It is imperfect.
So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista. — Lois McMaster Bujold

No, amusing me only, I wonder if they realize how they are used?"
"Not a bit. They think they are the emperors of creation."
"Poor lambs."
"That's not how I'd describe them."
"I was thinking of animal sacrifice."
"Ah. That's closer. — Lois McMaster Bujold

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

he'd looked as tall and cool as ever, but a faint panicked light in his blue eyes had put her oddly in mind of a cat that had just had an inadvertent ride in a dryer. — Lois McMaster Bujold

That's the spirit! Forward momentum."
Mayhew snorted. "Your forward momentum is going to lead all your followers over a cliff someday." He paused, beginning to grin. "On the way down, you'll convince 'em all they can fly." He stuck his fists in his armpits, and waggled his elbows. "Lead on, my lord. I'm flapping as hard as I can. — 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

People do get hypnotized by the hard choices. And stop looking for alternatives. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Colonel Otto, do you have a, perhaps, fuller and more detailed account than your preliminary one of why my Imperial Security building is now largely an underground installation? From a technical perspective. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins. — Lois McMaster Bujold

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

Perfect preservation isn't life, it's death. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Or that they believed you would not be here to inflict the consequences," said Ekaterin. Had they meant Vorkosigan to die, too? Or . . . what? "Oh, nice. That's reassuring." He bit rather aggressively into the last of his sandwich. She rested her chin on her hand and regarded him with wry curiosity. "Does ImpSec know you babble like this? — Lois McMaster Bujold

Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there ... — Lois McMaster Bujold

If you can't do what you want, do what you can. — Lois McMaster Bujold

One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. "He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine.
"Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous."
Vordarian choked, sputtering. — Lois McMaster Bujold

With an air of confession, Jin lowered his voice. Eggs come out of chickens' butts, you know. — 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

Are you glad, or sorry?" "About children?" She glanced at his face. He seemed to have no awareness of having hit a sore point dead on. "They just haven't come my way, I guess." The — Lois McMaster Bujold

At some stage of development an officer had to stop following orders and start generating them. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I am increasingly convinced that technological culture is the entire root of women's liberation. — Lois McMaster Bujold

How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old? — Lois McMaster Bujold

All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived. Or at all. After all, one sperm over and we would have been our sisters, and we'd never have been missed. — 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

I believe," she said slowly at last, "that the tormented are very close to God. I'm sorry, Sergeant." He — Lois McMaster Bujold

Guards, Miles now realized, had to stay in prison all day long too. Indeed, as a guard, one of his jobs was now to keep himself in. — 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

I'm not in a hurry, the woman said. Patience for her vengeance dripped like vitriol from her voice; even Tich was quelled. — Lois McMaster Bujold

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Four men entered Gregor's office. Miles recognized them at once; he was Barrayaran enough that his first thought was a conscience-stricken, My God, what
have I done wrong? Good sense reasserted itself; his feats of evil would have had to have been downright heroic to rate the attention of four Imperial Auditors at one time. — 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

He who plots revenge must dig two graves. — Lois McMaster Bujold

In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can often stay abstract and theoretical. Thus most of today's physicists do not seem to realize the philosophical, cultural and spiritual implications of their theories. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Integrity is a disease, and you can only catch it from someone who has it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

When I was a wee little kid," remarked Roic, watching over their shoulders, "there was a time I thought that any skinny old man I saw was my grandfather. It was pretty confusing. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."
On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You going to cover my funeral expenses, son?"
Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla."
- Miles coaxing Ky Tung to agree to an almost suicidal mission — Lois McMaster Bujold

Anyway, if the Cetagandans really wanted to assassinate you, they'd hardly do it here. They'd slip something subtle under your skin that wouldn't go off for six months, and then would drop you mysteriously and untraceably in your tracks — 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

I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Let me help. Rhymes with I love you, right? — Lois McMaster Bujold

It had the strangest effect on my internal visualizations." She stared at the hypospray with speculative respect. "I may try it on purpose someday." I want to be there if you do. Miles had a sudden exciting vision of using the drug to augment his own insights - instant brains! - then remembered to his extreme disappointment that fast-penta didn't work like that on him. Riva — Lois McMaster Bujold

It's important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture. — Lois McMaster Bujold

(T)he cadet was too young to believe in death after life. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So the difference between a criminal and a hero is the order in which their vile crimes are committed. And justice comes with a sell-by date. In that case, you'd better hurry. You wouldn't want your heroism to spoil. — Lois McMaster Bujold

...a great man. But...not quite great enough. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook everyone neatly, like eggs in their shells. (Mark Vorkosigan's first experience with warfare, on seeing Miles Vorkosigan splattered before him) — Lois McMaster Bujold

I have a catch-phrase to describe my plot-generation technique
'What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?' — Lois McMaster Bujold

How hard could husbanding be? Don't drink, don't gamble, don't bring hunting dogs to the table. Don't be terrified of tooth-drawers. Don't be stupid about money. Don't go for a soldier. No hitting girls. He wasn't drawn to violate any of these prohibitions. Assuming older sisters weren't classified as girls. Maybe make that, No hitting girls first. — Lois McMaster Bujold

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

Lady Peace is the first hostage taken when economic discomfort rises. — 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

I am surprised." She scanned the script rapidly. "Th-this is a p-pack of lies!" He looked worried. "Have you always had that little speech impediment?" he asked cautiously. "N-no, it's my souvenir from the Escobaran psych service, and the l-late war. Who came up with this g-garbage, anyway?" The line that particularly caught her eye referred to "the cowardly Admiral Vorkosigan and his pack of ruffians." "Vorkosigan's the bravest man I ever met." Gould took her firmly by the upper arm, and guided her to the shuttle hatch. "We have to go, now, to make the holovid timing. Maybe you can just leave that line out, all right? Now, smile. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Mark's ideas tended to the bland, and there was no point in asking Miles, whose embittered suggestions all ran to things like Vomit Vanilla and Cockroach Crunch. Vorkosigan — Lois McMaster Bujold

Dying's easy." Illyan's drawn features grew distant. How much did he remember of his agonized pleading to Miles for an easy death, so few weeks ago? "Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Lord X was a tyrant, not a revolutionary. He wanted to take over the system, not change it. — Lois McMaster Bujold

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