Komarr Quotes

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

“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

“I know girls who pine for it. They like to play dress-up and pretend being Vor ladies of old, rescued from menace by romantic Vor youths. For some reason they never play 'dying in childbirth', or 'vomiting your guts out from the red dysentery', or 'weaving till you go blind and crippled from arthritis and dye poisoning', or 'infanticide'. Well, they do die romantically of disease sometimes, but somehow it's always an illness that makes you interestingly pale and everyone sorry and doesn't involve losing bowel control.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“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, Komarr

“It’s just a thing. You deal with it."
"As in, one damn thing after another?"
"Yes, very like.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“There is a sad disconnectedness that overcomes a library when its owner is gone.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Once you had delegated the best people to do a job for you, you had to trust both them and your judgment. What”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“like swatting flies with a laser cannon. The aim's a bit tricky, but it sure takes care of the flies.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“He’s not so short,” said Ekaterin defensively. “He’s just . . . concentrated.” Her”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“If only you were willing to betray a trust, why, the most amazing range of possible actions opened up to you.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“How could you argue sense into someone who believed something not because it was true, but because he was an idiot?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement,”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Achievement is devastating, or at least disorienting, and they don't warn you in advance. It's the sudden change of momentum and direction, I think.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“never unlearned to respond to attack by turning to stone. Looking back now, I wonder how many of the problems in my marriage were due to . . . well.” She smiled, and blinked. “My mother was wrong, I think. She certainly ignored her own pain for far too long. But I’m stone all the way through, now, and it’s too late.” Miles bit his knuckles, hard. Right. So at the dawn of puberty, she’d learned no one would defend her, she could not defend herself, and the only way to survive was to pretend to be dead. Great.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“from the outside most people can’t tell the rapid exploitation of a belatedly recognized opportunity from deep-laid planning.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“A typical tech toy. High-end this year, everywhere next year, nowhere after that until the antiquarians revival.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“You had a jumpship and you gave it away?” Nikki’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Do you have any more?” “Not at present. Oh, look, a General-class cruiser.” Miles reached for it. “My father commanded one of those, once, I believe. Do you have any Betan Survey ships . . . ?” Heads bent together, they laid out the little fleet on the floor. Nikki, Miles was pleased to find, was well-up on all the tech-specs of every ship he owned; he expanded wonderfully, his voice, formerly shy around Miles-the-weird-adult-stranger, growing louder and faster in his unselfconscious enthusiasm as he detailed his machinery. Miles’s stock rose as he was able to claim personal acquaintance with nearly a dozen of the originals for the models, and add a few interesting nonclassified jumpship anecdotes to Nikki’s already impressive fund of knowledge.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“She turned for her kitchen, mentally revising her planned family dinner to include a Vor lord from the Imperial capital. White wine? Her limited experience of the breed suggested that if you could get them sufficiently sloshed, it wouldn't matter what you fed them.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Professora, Madame Vorsoisson, I trust I shall see you both back in Vorbarr Sultana?” “Yes, certainly,” said Ekaterin, barely avoiding breathlessness. “I will look forward to it with great fascination,” said the Professora piously. His smile went crooked in trenchant appreciation of her tone; he backed out with a flourishing, self-conscious bow, a courtly effect slightly spoiled by his caroming off the doorjamb. His quick steps faded down the corridor. “A nice young man,” observed Aunt Vorthys, into a room seeming suddenly much emptier. “A pity he’s so short.” “He’s not so short,” said Ekaterin defensively. “He’s just . . . concentrated.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Just what I always wanted. More clutter.” He grinned at her; she smiled back at last, clearly beginning to come off her adrenaline jag, and without breaking down, either. She drew breath and started forward again, and he kept pace. She had met the enemy, mastered her moment, hung three hours on death’s doorstep, all that, and she’d emerged still on her feet and snarling. Oversocialized, hah. Oh, yeah, Da, I want this one.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Someday, Miles, his boss ImpSec Chief Simon Illyan had once said to him, I hope you live to have a dozen subordinates just like you. Miles hadn’t realized till now that had been a formal curse on Illyan’s part.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Vorkosigan probably knew how, she reflected bitterly. Just like a man, to be underfoot in her life for days and then a quarter of a solar system away when she really needed him.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“I spent a career fighting the powers-that-be. Now I am them. Naturally, I was a little confused.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“He consoled himself with the reflection that it was seldom he found himself in company who made him feel this stupid. It was probably good for his soul.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“If people were too sensible, the human race might well come to an end. Evolution favored the maximum production of children, not of happiness. So how did you end up with neither?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“It was just like Uncle Vorthys to have provided this comfort for her; he did nothing by halves. No artificial shortages, she could almost hear him enthusiastically booming, though he usually recited that slogan in reference to desserts.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“How could you tell the difference between not liking sex, and not liking the only person you’d ever done sex with?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Love was long gone, in her. She got by on a starvation diet of loyalty these days.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“No amount of panicky protestation or indignant denial or futile attempt to prove a negative was likely to help, because the problem was not in the accused, but in the accuser.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Then he had accused her of sleeping with her women friends. That had broken something in her at last, some will to desire his good opinion. How could you argue sense into someone who believed something not because it was true, but because he was an idiot?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr