Heather > Heather's 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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

“You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted - but rather, vastly enriched.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“I had to discover and teach myself all kinds of tricks to get people to respond to the inside of me, and not the outside.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Brothers in Arms

“the key was to take the initiative from the first moment, and keep it thereafter. He could be as hollow as a drum, so long as he was as loud.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“Very good. But your most insidious chronic problem is in the area of . . . how shall I put this precisely . . . subordination. You argue too much.” “No, I don’t,” Miles began indignantly, then shut his mouth.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

“He wanted to know what I saw in you. I told him..." he paused again, and then continued almost shyly, "that you poured out honor like a fountain, all around you."

"That's weird. I don't feel full of honor, or anything else, except maybe confusion."

"Naturally not. Fountains keep nothing for themselves.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“You? I know you! You trust beyond reason."
She met his eyes steadily. "Yes. It's how I get results beyond hope. As you may recall.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“Hold to virtue—if you can identify it—and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service. Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“It reminded him of that definition of his father's. A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground; the stuff in between was just noise.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

“So what’s the test?"
"Ah, that’s the trick of it. It’s not a test. It’s real life.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity

“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, Shards of Honour

“It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion