Cetaganda Quotes

“It was suicide, wasn't it?"
"In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate."
"Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip.
"Exactly, my lord.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Emperors per se did not unnerve Miles . . . . Emperor Gregor had been raised along with Miles practically as his foster-brother; somewhere in the back of Miles's mind the term emperor was coupled with such identifiers as somebody to play hide-and-seek with. In this context those hidden assumptions could be a psychosocial land mine.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Mia Maz glanced aside in concern at his muffled snort. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. Sorry," he whispered. "I'm just having an attack of limericks."
Her eyes widened, and she bit her lip; only her deepening dimple betrayed her. "Shhh," she said, with feeling.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Lord X was a tyrant, not a revolutionary. He wanted to take over the system, not change it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“At some stage of development an officer had to stop following orders and start generating them.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Anyway, if the Cetagandans really wanted to assassinate you, they'd hardly do it here. They'd slip something subtle under your skin that wouldn't go off for six months, and then would drop you mysteriously and untraceably in your tracks”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“You don’t hire a genius to solve the most intractable imaginable problem, and then hedge him around with a lot of rules, nor try to micro-manage him ... You turn him loose.
If all you need is somebody to follow orders, you can hire an idiot. In fact, an idiot would be better suited.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“he was beginning to wonder if he was trying to rescue the dragon.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“At a growl from Kety, the procession paused in front of the entering Barrayarans. Miles heard Kety’s voice, icy-cold: “Congratulations, Lord Vorpatril. I hope you may be fortunate enough to survive your victory.” “Huh?” said Ivan. Oh,”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“And . . . do you have any supporting evidence for your explanation of yourself?" "Certainly." Miles stared thoughtfully into the air, as if about to pull his words from the thinnest part.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“That civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes with the third-level formal style of your dress, you know.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“mi desconocido oponente me había puesto en la posición lógicamente imposible de tener que negar una negación”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Toda diplomacia es una continuación del arte de la guerra por otros medios -recitó Miles-. Chou En Lai, siglo XX. Tierra.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“They were just the sort of people who started revolutions but could not finish them, their idealism betrayed by their incompetence.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Luck is something you make for yourself, if you want it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“I figure we can tell events exactly as they happened, just leave out that one tiny detail.” “You figure, do you? You must be using a different kind of math than the rest of the universe does.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“All right,” he said at last, “but after we talk to her, we report to ImpSec.” “Ivan, I am ImpSec,” snapped Miles. “Three years of training and field experience, remember? Do me the honor of grasping that I may just possibly know what I’m doing!” I wish to hell I knew what I was doing.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“A Degtiar empress named Lisbet
Trapped a satrap lord neatly in his net.
Enticed into treason
For all the wrong reasons,
He’ll soon have a crash with his kismet.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Miles wanted to snap out a sharp rejoinder, but shivered instead. I miss Bothari, too. He had almost forgotten how much, till Ivan’s words hit the scar of his regret, that secret little pocket of anguish that never seemed to drain.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Do you remember,” Ivan sighed, “that time in the back garden at Vorkosigan House, when you’d been reading all those military histories about the Cetagandan prison camps during the invasion, and you decided we had to dig an escape tunnel? Except it was you who did all the designing, and me and Elena who did all the digging?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Miles sighed inwardly, wishing he could flood the entire pavilion with fast-penta. The haut were all so damned controlled, they looked like they were lying even when they weren’t. “I wonder, haut Kety, if you would introduce me to Governor haut Slyke Giaja. As an Imperial relation of sorts myself, I can’t help feeling he is something of my opposite number.” The”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“A poem of his own in honor of the late empress formed, unbidden, in his brain. A Degtiar empress named Lisbet Trapped a satrap lord neatly in his net. Enticed into treason For all the wrong reasons, He’ll soon have a crash with his kismet. He choked down a genuinely horrible impulse to bounce down to the center of the dell and declaim his poetic offering to the assembled haut multitude, just to see what would happen. Mia”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“Hell, you had to at least achieve monogamy before you could go on to larger ambitions. So far he had failed to attach even one woman to his sawed-off person. Of course, nearly three years in covert ops, and the period before that in the all-male environs of the military academy, had limited his opportunities. Nice”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda

“ImpSec certainly hadn’t given him any more interesting missions, unless you could call Security Chief Illyan’s last curt “. . . and stay out of trouble!” a secret assignment. On”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda