Lois McMaster Bujold: Trending quotes (page 7)

“I have no right to risk. No, that's not quite correct. I have no right to failure. And I don't trust myself anymore. I don't know what's happened to my edge. Lost it in a strange land.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Failure

“Am I reading too much into all that innuendo, or did you in fact just connive to assassinate Gregor in one breath, offer to cuckold him in the next, accuse your father of homosexuality, suggest a patricidal plot against him, and league yourself with Cavilo -- what are you going to do for an encore?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

"Depends on the straight lines."
Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

Reading , Dependency

“All true wealth is biological.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Wealth

“As God is my witness, when I am laid to my rest, I hope my best beloved will have better to say of me than "He never hit me."”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Komarr (1998)

God , Hope

“With all this manure around, there's got to be a pony someplace.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“A good friend of my son's is a son to me.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Ethan of Athos (1986)

“You have to be careful who you let define your good.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“I guess it just doesn't look very heroic to sneak up behind somebody and shoot them in the back. I can't help thinking it would be more efficient, though.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Thinking , Help

“It just happens to be very important to me to win with the hand I was dealt.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

“It's not a comfortable thing, to be chosen so. I tried to avoid it for a long time, but God finds ways of dealing with draft dodgers.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

God , Way , Time

“If suspicion was the deadliest possible insult, then trust was always right, even if it was mistaken.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Komarr (1998)

“It was seldom he found himself in company who made him feel this stupid. It was probably good for his soul.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Komarr (1998)

Stupidity , Feeling , Soul

“The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 157

God

“A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“I for one find a casual destruction of a man's life even more repugnant than a determined one.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 292

Life

“"I'm *not* schizophrenic. A little manic-depressive, maybe."
"Know thyself."
"We try, sir."”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

“The trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Death , People , World , Time

“Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 8 (p. 132; Vorkosigan to Cordelia; she quotes it back to him on p. 236)

Motivation , Future , Victory

“When I was twenty, I chose my life. It wasn't this one.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Life

“You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Secret , Heart