Lois McMaster Bujold

“Take heart, sir," Cazaril consoled him. "It is not your destiny today to win a royacy for your son. It is to win an empire for your grandson.”

“Royse Bergon: "I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my father, who is a prudent, cautious man, always looking for men's hidden, selfish motivations. No one can cheat him. But I've seen him cheat himself. If you understand what I mean."Caz: "Yes."R.B.: "It was very foolish of you to attack that vile Roknari galley-man."Caz: "Yes."R.B.: "And yet, I think, given the same circumstances you would do it again."Caz: "Knowing what I know now...it would be harder. But I would hope... I would pray, Royse, that the gods would still lend me such foolishness in my need."R.B: "What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father's gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool, too, Caz?"Caz: "Oh," "I'm sure of it.”

“I am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.”

“Learn everything that existed in the universe, and whatever was left, thatdwarfish-man-shaped hole in the center, would be him by process of elimination.”

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them.”

“reputatia este ceea ce stiu altii despre tine, onoarea este ceea ce stii tu despre tine".”

“One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. "He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine."Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous."Vordarian choked, sputtering.”

“If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.”

“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.”

“All true wealth is biological (Aral Vorkosigan)”

“Never underestimate the human capacity for wishful thinking and willful blindness,' said Miles. Such as a whole society of people who became so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?”

“History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.”

“All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived. Or at all. After all, one sperm over and we would have been our sisters, and we'd never have been missed.”

“The world is made by the people who show up for the job.”

“I wonder if we should add a box to tick off -- Reason for travel: creepy planetary conquest... no, I suppose not.”

“One foot in front of the other, wasn't that the grownup way of solving problems? Surely he ought to be a grownup at his age.”

“The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.”

“Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view?”

“The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.”

“I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.”

“For a while, I thought I was going mad. At last, I became reconciled to my despair.The medications helped, too, I thought, sir.”

“It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.”

“My home is not a place, it is people.”

“Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You going to cover my funeral expenses, son?"Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla."- Miles coaxing Ky Tung to agree to an almost suicidal mission”

“You try to give away what you want yourself.”

“I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop. ”

“Miles had sworn his officer's oath to the Emperor less than two weeks ago, puffed with pride at his achievement. In his secret mind he had imagined himself keeping that oath through blazing battle, enemy torture, what-have-you, even while sharing cynical cracks afterwards with Ivan about archaic dress swords and the sort of people who insisted on wearing them. But in the dark of subtler temptations, those that hurt without heroism for consolation, he foresaw, the Emperor would no longer be the symbol of Barrayar in his heart. Peace to you, small lady, he thought to Raina. You've won a twisted poor modern knight, to wear your favor on his sleeve. But it's a twisted poor world we were both born into, that rejects us without mercy and ejects us without consultation. At least I won't just tilt at windmills for you. I'll send in sappers to mine the twirling suckers, and blast them into the sky.... He knew who he served now. And why he could not quit. And why he must not fail.”

“If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?”

“When the souls rise up in glory, yours shall not be shunned nor sunderered, but shall be the prize of the gods' gardens. Even your darkness shall be treasured then, and all your pain made holy.”

“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.”

“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

“If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?”

“War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.”

“An honor is not diminished for being shared.”

“I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.”

“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.”

“The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.”

“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.”

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

“For Berry, you just be there, Whit. Be the one person in the wide green world she doesn't have to explain it to, because you were there and saw it all for yourself. Hand her a clean cloth if she cries or bleeds, and some warm thing for the pain that doubles her over. The time to hold her will come. This day isn't over yet.”

“Money, power, sex ... and elephants.”

“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?”

“When the time comes to leap in faith whether you have your eyes open or closed or scream all the way down or not makes no practical difference.”

“This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. The human mind is the ultimate testing device. You can take all the notes you want on the technical data, anything you forget you can look up again, but this must be engraved on your hearts in letters of fire. There is nothing, nothing, nothing, more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool metal. That’s all.”

“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.”

“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.”

“Never do yourself, what you can con professionals into doing for you.”

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”

“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.”

“My dinner party,' Miles grated. 'It's just breaking up.' And sinking. All souls feared lost.”