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Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes
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Lois McMaster Bujold is an American speculative fiction writer. She is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record, not counting his Retro Hugo. Her novella "The Mountains of Mourning" won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. In the fantasy genre, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel, and both her fourth Hugo Award and second Nebula Award were for Paladin of Souls. In 2011 she was awarded the Skylark Award. In 2013 she was awarded the Forry Award. In 2017 she won a Hugo Award for Best Series, for the Vorkosigan Saga.

The bulk of Bujold's works comprises three separate book series: the Vorkosigan Saga, the Chalion Series, and the Sharing Knife series.

✵ 2. November 1949
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Lois McMaster Bujold: 383 quotes8 likes

Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes

“"Is this guy for real?"
"He thinks he's faking it, but he's not."”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“Some fortunate, prolific writers seem to be able, efficiently, to keep several projects going at once; it appears I am not one of them.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Geek Speak Magazine Interview (2010)

“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)

“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)

“All true wealth is biological.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

Lois McMaster Bujold quote: “The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded.”

“The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

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

“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

“"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)

“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)

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

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“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)

“He said that permitting private judgments to turn my duty in the smallest matter would be just like getting a little bit pregnant — that the consequences would very soon get beyond me.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 8 (p. 127)

“Yeah, so I'm short. But wait'll you see me dance.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Mountains of Mourning (1989)

“The confusion of mind you dub honor is a disease.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 282

“Our children change us…whether they live or not.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“So much for that line of reasoning, Lord Richars," Ekaterin finished. She sat back with a hand-dusting gesture, and added, by no means under her breath, "Twit'.'”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“Any community's arm of force — military, police, security — needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“Why shouldn't a madman dream of being sane?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 14 (p. 224)

“Government by thugs in the Bloody Centuries gave Barrayar many colorful historical incidents, suitable for high drama. I don't think it's a drama we wish to return to in real life.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“You can say a lot in a little time, if you stick to words of one syllable.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“Don't be afraid. The dead cannot hurt you. They give you no pain, except that of seeing your own death in their faces. And one can face that, I find.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Yes, he thought, the good face pain. But the great—they embrace it.

Aftermaths (p. 253)
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“Men may move mountains, but ideas move men.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“The wounded want power, nothing else; they think it will keep them from being hurt again.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“In my experience, milady, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“Hi, I'm a hero, but I can't tell you why. It's classified.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“Eloquence consists of persuading people of things they desperately want to believe. Demagoguery, I suppose, is eloquence sliding to some least moral energy level.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Komarr (1998)

Lois McMaster Bujold quote: “A skilled soldier kills your enemies, but a skilled duelist kills your allies.”

“A skilled soldier kills your enemies, but a skilled duelist kills your allies.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

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

“He gave himself up to God and pressed the button.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 15 (p. 284)

“One scarcely knows if he would be of more use to us as a hostage, or set loose to be a very bad enemy leader.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 459

“Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook everyone neatly, like eggs in their shells.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not when the enemy is me.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

This includes a common paraphrase of a statement which originates with military strategist Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke: "No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force."
Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“The joys of command — well, you know. You taught them to me. One part glory to ten parts shoveling manure.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 76

“Not all books are created equal, and for the special ones, you begin to know it sometimes even before the work is finished, but always by the time you slam that last line home and shriek, "Done! Done!," and fall head-down across your keyboard like the runner from Marathon.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", p. 54
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

“There is a subtle difference between being a prisoner and being a slave. I don't mistake either for being free.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“I don’t write stories to tell readers what to think, or even tell them what I think; I write stories to show me what I think. Writing is always a journey of discovery that way, as suspenseful for me as I hope it will be for the audience.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Geek Speak Magazine Interview (2010)

“Second sight is redundant to reason anyway.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 328

“East is west, up is down, and being falsely arrested for getting your C. O.'s throat cut is a simplification. I must be on Barrayar.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 8 (p. 128)

“If we shouldn't do it, we shouldn't be able to do it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

“Surely only correct understanding could lead to correct action.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 369