Lois McMaster Bujold > Quotes

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“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, Memory

“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, Shards of Honour

“When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“My home is not a place, it is people.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

“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, Barrayar

“If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Labyrinth

“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance

“Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“When the time comes to leap in faith whether you have your eyes open or closed or scream all the way down or not makes no practical difference.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold

“Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

“I am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Brothers in Arms

“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

“Never do yourself, what you can con professionals into doing for you.”
― 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, Komarr

“Money, power, sex ... and elephants.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

“If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

“An honor is not diminished for being shared.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“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, Shards of Honour

“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“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, The Warrior's Apprentice

“My dinner party,' Miles grated. 'It's just breaking up.' And sinking. All souls feared lost.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“You try to give away what you want yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“One step at a time,” Vorkosigan returned grimly, “I can walk around the world. Watch me.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

“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, A Civil Campaign

“Miles had sworn his officer's oath to the Emperor less than two weeks ago, puffed with pride at his achievement. In his secret mind he had imagined himself keeping that oath through blazing battle, enemy torture, what-have-you, even while sharing cynical cracks afterwards with Ivan about archaic dress swords and the sort of people who insisted on wearing them.
But in the dark of subtler temptations, those that hurt without heroism for consolation, he foresaw, the Emperor would no longer be the symbol of Barrayar in his heart.
Peace to you, small lady, he thought to Raina. You've won a twisted poor modern knight, to wear your favor on his sleeve. But it's a twisted poor world we were both born into, that rejects us without mercy and ejects us without consultation. At least I won't just tilt at windmills for you. I'll send in sappers to mine the twirling suckers, and blast them into the sky....
He knew who he served now. And why he could not quit. And why he must not fail.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Mountains Of Mourning

“The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cordelia's Honor

“If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“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, Mirror Dance

“If you can't do what you want, do what you can.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Miles Errant

“Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

“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, Barrayar

“This is important! But you have to stay absolutely cool. I may be completely off-base, and panicking prematurely."
"I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Miles, Mystery & Mayhem

“The good face pain. But the great? They embrace it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“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, The Vor Game

“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, The Curse of Chalion

“This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.
Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“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, Labyrinth

“I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“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, Barrayar

“The world is made by the people who show up for the job.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, CryoBurn

“Oh, was that liquor of yours a stimulant?" asked Elena. "I wondered why he didn't fall asleep.""Couldn't you tell?" chuckled Mayhew."Not really."Miles twisted his head to take in Elena's upside-down worried face, and smile in weak reassurance. Sparkly black and purple whirlpools clouded his vision.Mayhew's laughter faded. "My God," he said hollowly, "you mean he's like that all the time?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice