Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)
Context: The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools. The survivors were those who learned to fight dirty, and live, and fight another day, and win, and win, and win, and for whom nothing, not comfort, or security, not family or friends or their immortal souls, was more important than winning. Dead men are losers by definition. Survival and victory. They weren't supermen, or immune to pain. They sweated in confusion and darkness. And … they won.
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A Girl's World interview (2006)
Context: Don't worry about that depressing old dictum "Write what you know". If you need to know something, look it up. Learn how to find out what you need to know to make it right. Be passionate, be picky, have enough self-criticism to demand of yourself your best and not sort of let it slide by. And remember that the greatest defect any piece of fiction can have is not to be finished.
Cordelia's Honor (1996), "Author's Afterword"
Context: All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe — if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again.
“If you're trying to keep it a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone"?”
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Context: Marta blinked at him with manufactured innocence. "Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you're trying to keep it a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone"?
“Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.”
Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)
Context: You must kill if you expect to survive."
"No you don't," Miles put in. "Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.
Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)
Context: 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?
“Organization seemed to be the key.”
Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Context: Organization seemed to be the key. To get huge masses of properly matched men and materials to the right place at the right time in the right order with the swiftness required to even grasp survival — to wrestle an infinitely complex and confusing reality into the abstract shape of victory — organization, it seemed, might even outrank courage as a soldierly virtue.
“The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.”
Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)
Context: 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.
Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)
Context: 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.
“Which is just a fancy way of saying, "I think about it a lot, day and night."”
"Publishing, Writing, and Authoring", p. 67
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Context: I attack both from the logic-side, scribbling outline after outline, and the long-walk relaxed-visualization-side, and while neither alone is enough, the combination synergizes. Which is just a fancy way of saying, "I think about it a lot, day and night."
Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)
Context: It's important that someone celebrate our existence... 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.
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 15 (p. 235)
Source: Shards of Honour
“Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
“My home is not a place, it is people.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)