The Hallowed Hunt Quotes

“Signs of the Bastard's holy presence tend to be unmistakable, to those who know Him. The screaming, the altercations, the people running in circles - all that was lacking was something bursting into flame, and I was not entirely sure for a moment you weren't going to provide that as well.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Utterly bleak and black is not the sum of realism. All the other colors are real, too.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“But have you ever overheard two women discussing men? Men are crude liars, comparing their drabs, but women - I'd rather have [an] anatomist dissect me alive than to listen to the things the ladies say about us when they think they are alone.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“You would -- you would take him into Your heaven, my lord?" asked Ingrey in astonishment and outrage. "He slew, not in defense of his own life, but in malice and madness. He tried to steal powers not rightly given to him. If I guess right, he plotted the death of his own brother. He would have raped Ijada, if he could, and killed again for his sport!"

The Son held up his hands. Luminescent, they seemed, as if dappled by autumn sun reflecting off a stream into shade. "My grace flows from me as a river, wolf-lord. Would you have me dole it out in the exact measure that men earn, as from an apothecary's dropper? Would you stand in pure water to your waist, and administer it by the scant spoon to men dying of thirst on a parched shore?"

Ingrey stood silent, abashed, but Ijada lifted her face, and said steadily, "No, my lord, for my part. Give him to the river. Tumble him down in the thunder of Your cataract. His loss is no gain of mine, nor his dark deserving any joy to me."

The god smiled brilliantly at her. Tears slid down her face like silver threads: like benedictions.

"It is unjust," whispered Ingrey. "Unfair to all who -- who would try to do rightly...."

"Ah, but I am not the god for justice," murmured the Son. "Would you both stand before my Father instead?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“The meaning of yes is created by the ability to say no.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Talking to the gods had been a much more comfortable proposition when there had seemed no danger of Their talking back.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“The Son held up his hands. Luminescent, they seemed, as if dappled by autumn sun reflecting off a stream into shade. “My grace flows from these as a river, wolf-lord. Would you have me dole it out in the exact measure that men earn, as from an apothecary’s dropper? Would you stand in pure water to your waist, and administer it by the scant spoon to men dying of thirst on a parched shore?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“I had never had a direct experience of the holy in my life, for all that I tried to serve my god as seemed best to me, according to my gifts as we are taught. Except for Hallana. She was the only miracle that ever happened to me. The woman seems vastly oversupplied with gods. At one point, I accused her of having stolen my share, and she accused me of marrying her solely to sustain a proper average. The gods walk through her dreams as though strolling in a garden. I just have dreams of running lost through my old seminary, with no clothes, late for an examination of a class I did not know I had, and the like.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“The gods have no hands in this world but ours. If we fail Them, where then can They turn?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“I was imagining the most bizarre things befalling you.” “Did they include a six-hundred-pound ice bear and a pirate poet?” “No…” “Then they weren’t the most bizarre after all.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Why do you think we call him Skullsplitter? He makes our heads burst with his tales.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Her lips curved up. “That’s very Ingrey of you, Ingrey. Always look on the dark side.” “Someone has to be realistic, in the midst of this madness!” Now her brows rose, too. She was laughing at him. “Utterly bleak and black is not the sum of realism. All the other colors are real, too. It was my undeserved redemption as well.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“For a brief, self-indulgent moment, Ingrey pictured himself drawing his steel and beheading his servant. Alas, the hall was too narrow for such a swing to be executed properly. He gave over the vision with a long sigh and levered himself to his feet.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“We share a certain problem apart from your legal morass,” he continued. “Cat maiden.” “Oh, it’s not apart. Dog lord.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“What makes the hallow kingship hallowed?” Ingrey hesitated so long in answering, Biast began to turn away again in disappointment, when Ingrey blurted, “Faith.” And at the puzzled pinch of Biast’s brows, clarified: “Keeping it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Trust in the gods, They will supply? Hardly. He wondered suddenly if it was as hard for the gods to have faith in Ingrey as it was for him to have faith in Them, and a weird wild urge to show Them how it should be done swept him for a moment.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Death is not a performance to rate ourselves upon, or berate ourselves upon either.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“But even the gods cannot see infinitely far ahead. Our free wills cloud Their vision, even though Their eyes are more piercing than ours. The gods do not plan, so much as take advantage.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“It is the abnegation of self-will that gives room for the gods to enter through saints.”
― Lois Mcmaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“She possessed no more answers than he did, but he admired her talent for finding very uncomfortable questions.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“He held out a hand in the dimness. This is an illusion. I am simply going mad with unrequited lust. Except that it hadn’t seemed as unrequited as all that, now, had it? A perfectly demented grin stretched his mouth, briefly.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“We cannot continue to flounder along with no attempt at a plan,” he began firmly. “You’ve rejected mine. Have you a better?” “Run away was not my idea of a plan.” She cocked an eye at him. “And when did I become we?” His mouth, tightening, paused. The first hour I saw you at Boar’s Head, five gods help me.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Uneasy awareness of his duty to report the truth to the sealmaster warred now with fear, in his heart. Fear and rage. Who placed that grotesque geas in me, and how? Why was I made a witless tool? And can it happen again?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Oswin was the most perfect servant of the Father, always so concerned for figuring out the exact rules and getting himself on the right side of them. Or them on the left side of him. It always stung him when I pointed that out.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Horseriver first, before he’d been exhausted by this night, could he have taken apart what Horseriver’s long curse had welded together?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“money, I’d take what odd tasks came to hand.” Anything had seemed better than turning his steps toward home. And then…one day, it hadn’t, anymore. “I met Lord Hetwar when he was on an embassy to the king of Darthaca.” His desperate contrivances to win access to the sealmaster, he didn’t think worth recounting. “He was curious how a Wealding kinsman should be serving strangers so far from home, so I told him my tale. He was not daunted by my wolf and gave me a place in his guard that I might work my way back to my own country. I made myself useful during some incidents on the road, and he was pleased to make my place permanent. I rose in his household thereafter.” Ingrey’s mouth firmed in tight pride. “By my merits.” He applied himself to his spiced meat, sopping up the last of its gingery gravy with the inn’s good bread. Ijada had stopped eating a little while ago and sat solemn with thought, running her finger around the rim of her empty wine beaker. When she looked up and caught his eye, she managed a wan smile. Hallana waved away her maid’s attempt to feed her a second apple tart, and Hergi rolled up the stained napkin and bundled it away. The sorceress eyed Ingrey. “Feeling better now?” “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “Do you have any idea who laid this”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Could he stop denying himself, and deny others instead? He tested the phrases on his tongue. No, you are wrong, all of you, Temple and Court and folk in the streets. You always were wrong. I am not…am not… what? And are these the only terms I can think in, these shouted nos? Ah, habit.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“If there is one thing that I have come to hate more than the gods, it is time.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt