“Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't Panic.""I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining .”

“This is important! But you have to stay absolutely cool. I may be completely off-base, and panicking prematurely.""I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days.”

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

“Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right—and then apologizing. Inconsistent, Father.He shuffled back and forth across the room again, and his pain burst into speech. He flung his words against the deaf door, "I'll make you take back that apology! I am all right, damn it! I'll make you see it. I'll stuff you so full of pride in me there'll be no room left for your precious guilt! I swear by my word as Vorkosigan. I swear it, Father," his voice fell to a whisper, "Grandfather. Somehow, I don't know how . . .”

“You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted - but rather, vastly enriched.”

“Miles is... Miles; close to a force of nature, climbing up out of his own pages and escaping subordination to any opinion of mine.”

“I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right.You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her.It is imperfect.So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista.”