Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes

The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.

And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth?

It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you wer...

I think 99 percent of women's lib comes from technology making different kinds of lives possible, an...

The book is not an object on the table; it is an event in the reader's mind. It's a process, through...

Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.

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

Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal.

You must learn to give, from sufficiency, not only take, from neediness.

Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company y...

Royse Bergon: "I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my fath...

There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to ...

You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, w...

Not that I haven't leaped up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It's sustaining the...

You want to be good. All right, I can understand that. But you have to be careful who you let define...

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

I wanted to give you a victory. But by their essential nature triumphs can’t be given.

everyone has their folding-point, Miles. Their mortal vulnerability. Some just keep it in a nonstand...

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you’ll be so close as to be living inside each other’s ski...

For your fourth consoling thought, I would point out that in this venue," a wave of his finger took ...

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.

When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.

You? I know you! You trust beyond reason."She met his eyes steadily. "Yes. It's how I get results be...

[Koudelka] looked back, "You?! I know you! You trust beyond reason!"[Cordelia] met his eyes steadily...

The strangeness of the Barrayaran government system with all its unwritten customs, pressed on Corde...

It’s a . . . transcendental act. Making life. . . . ‘By this act, I bring one death into the world.’...

Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.

Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnatio...

Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came. And that they will r...

But though you’d never starve your body to wasting and still expect to go on, you starve your heart,...

(Watching her) was a little like watching water lilies; rather more like smelling a dinner he was no...

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

Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Rev...

Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.

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

It’s true that if your religion failed to deliver a miracle, that a human sacrifice would certainly ...

People do get hypnotized by the hard choices and stop looking at the alternatives. The will to be st...

I'm afraid even ImpSec has no explanation for women's tastes in men.

Tej seemed such a sunny personality, much of the time--these flashes of dark were like a crack in th...

His master plan to get them all out the door early met its first check of the day when he opened his...

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

Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right—and then...

Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how g...

A true Vor, Miles told himself severely, does not bury his face in his liegewoman's breasts and cry—...

There will be grace and forgiveness enough, old dog, even for you. I pray you will spare me a drink ...

He who plots revenge must dig two graves.

Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."On my ...

The fourth approved approach for the problem of frontally attacking a guarded wormhole was to shoot ...

Miles added it to his life's lessons list. Call it Rule 27B. Never make key tactical decisions while...

It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.

The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistak...

Well, it is a particular sin to permit grief for what is gone to poison the praise for what blessing...

In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living mani...

You were kind.”Cazaril shrugged. “Why not? What could it cost me, after all?”Bergon shook his head. ...

I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weig...

This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted him...

Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may...

But personally, I think [sainthood] is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement o...

The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous busin...

And this was your friend?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "Seems to me the only difference between yo...

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

It was hell to be so tired, and still care.

Change is possible.''Change is inevitable.

Barrayar is bred in my bones. I cannot shake it, no matter how far I travel. This struggle, God know...

They stared at her curiously, and she caught snatches of conversation in two or three languages. It ...

The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death...

But when he’s cut, I bleed.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.~Dag Redwing Hickory Bluefield

Poets speak of hope in ladies smiles, but give me a smirk any day, I say.

Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits e...

And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the p...

Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. "The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not...

Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook ever...

Real destiny takes everything—the last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sure—and gives ...

That civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes with the third-level formal style...

You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You j...

God save me from another such victory.

Anyway, if the Cetagandans really wanted to assassinate you, they'd hardly do it here. They'd slip s...

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

If there’s no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept?

Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop...

I know girls who pine for it. They like to play dress-up and pretend being Vor ladies of old, rescue...

There is a sad disconnectedness that overcomes a library when its owner is gone.

It’s just a thing. You deal with it." "As in, one damn thing after another?""Yes, very like.

Don't let fear swallow all your happiness. Don't forget to take joy." Dag gulped. Both of their grou...

Everybody has it wrong way round. Parents don't make children--children make parents. They shape our...

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

One foot in front of the other, wasn't that the grownup way of solving problems? Surely he ought to ...

When I was a wee little kid," remarked Roic, watching over their shoulders, "there was a time I thou...

It was suicide, wasn't it?""In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan politi...