Memory Quotes

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Memory (Vorkosigan Saga, #10) Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
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Memory Quotes Showing 1-30 of 52
“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
“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 am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“You try to give away what you want yourself.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Money, power, sex ... and elephants.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Well, one couldn't help one's thoughts. One could help opening one's mouth and saying something really stupid, though.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."

"What do you find on the other side? When you go on?"

She shrugged. "Your life again. What else?”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“stupidity can be as bad as malice”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“On the thought a blessed silence came, an empty clarity. He took it a first for utter desolation, but desolation was a type of free fall, perpetual and without ground below. This was stillness: balanced, solid, weirdly serene. No momentum to it at all, forward or backwards or sideways.

He lay drained of tension, not moving, and content to be so. The oddly stretched moment was like a bite of eternity, eaten on the run. Was this quiet place inside something new-grown, or had he just never stumbled upon it before? How could so vast a thing lay undiscovered for so long? His breathing slowed and deepened.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Perfect preservation isn't life, it’s death.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“If there’s no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept?”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“His master plan to get them all out the door early met its first check of the day when he opened his closet door to discover that Zap the Cat, having penetrated the security of Vorkosigan House through Miles's quisling cook, had made a nest on the floor among his boots and fallen clothing to have kittens. Six of them.
Zap ignored his threats about the dire consequences of attacking an Imperial Auditor, and purred and growled from the dimness in her usual schizophrenic fashion. Miles gathered his nerve and rescued his best boots and House uniform, at a cost of some high Vor blood, and sent them downstairs for a hasty cleaning by the overworked Armsman Pym. The Countess, delighted as ever to find her biological empire increasing, came in thoughtfully bearing a cat-gourmet tray prepared by Ma Kosti that Miles would have had no hesitation in eating for his own breakfast. In the general chaos of the morning, however, he had to go down to the kitchen and scrounge his meal. The Countess sat on the floor and cooed into his closet for a good half-hour, and not only escaped laceration, but managed to pick up, sex, and name the whole batch of little squirming furballs before tearing herself away to hurry and dress.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“God save me from another such victory.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Save me from the virtuous.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Identity. That's my elephant. The thought came with certainty, without the question mark on the end this time. Not fame, exactly, though recognition was some kind of important cement for it. But what you were was what you did. And I did more, oh yes. If a hunger for identity were translated into, say, a hunger for food, he'd be a more fantastic glutton than Mark ever dreamed of being. Is it irrational, to want to be so much, to want so hard it hurts? And how much, then, was enough?”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Successes are secret and thankless, failures are splashy and gain you only blame.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart’s hope. It was what I wanted to be.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“So, Lord Auditor Coz. Did you find some fun?

Do I look cheerful?

More like manic.

It's a joy, Ivan, an absolute joy. The ImpSec internal Security system is lying to me.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“If he ever does do himself in, I'm betting it'll be something that involves large explosions. And lots of innocent bystanders, probably.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“I expect you’ll be wading for the rest of your life,” Illyan answered seriously. “But every Komarran who follows you will have less crap to deal with, because of you.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“My Lord, we wish to resign." Her smile, confusingly, crept wider, as if she just said something delightful.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Dying's easy." Illyan's drawn features grew distant. How much did he remember of his agonized pleading to Miles for an easy death, so few weeks ago? "Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Then she said, “You go on. You just go on. There’s nothing more to it, and there’s no trick to make it easier. You just go on.” “What do you find on the other side? When you go on?” She shrugged. “Your life again. What else?”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Weddell/Canaba was still an ass at heart, Miles reflected. But he did know his molecular biology. After”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Gregor grinned. “Congratulations to you, too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you’ve changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation.” Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? “Let’s try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness.” “With all my heart,” Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com. Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. “It’s not my fault!” “Yes, it is,” said Ivan. “It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it.” “No, it wasn’t. It was yours. You’re the one who dragooned me into attending the damned state dinner in the first place.” “I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me.” “Oh. So it’s all her fault. Good. I can live with that.” Ivan”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“Galeni made her smile but not laugh. The lack of any sense of play between them worried Miles; you had to have a keen sense of humor to do sex and stay sane.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

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