Dorian > Dorian's Quotes

“The Imperial Service could win a war without coffee, but would prefer not to have to.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

“I seem to have excalibured this knife.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Enchanted Glass

“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

“Busy old fool, unruly Sophie”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life

“Funny the way it was never enough to swear and promise just the once. You seemed to have to rethink and repromise every time the subject came up.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, The Crown of Dalemark

“Everybody at a university was to her a professor, unless they were students of course, and therefore even worse.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Enchanted Glass

“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

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

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

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

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

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

“I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance

“Yes," Vorkosigan agreed, "I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“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, Cordelia's Honor

“…the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“It was all sympathetic magic. When you couldn't do something truly useful, you tended to vent the pent-up energy in something useless but available, like snappy dressing.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold

“A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. "Well," said the man, "I shouldn't have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing." I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness

“Still, it doesn't do to murder people, no matter how offensive they may be.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, The Five Red Herrings

“The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers

“She couldn't have found anything nastier to say if she had thought it out with both hands for a fortnight.”
― Dorothy Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase

“God has judged me all my life. But that is God's privilege, my lady. Not yours.”
― Barbara Hambly, The Armies of Daylight

“I simply don't shine in company. Mostly I prefer to retreat with a book.”
― Barbara Hambly, Bride of the Rat God

“and the Buck women found themselves in the novel position of having two healthy, strong men at their bidding.”
― Sarah Mayberry, Almost a Bride