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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

“The man who assumes everything is a lie is at least as mistaken as the one who assumes everything is true.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

“Parallels, spirals, and reflections are some of my favorite literary patterns.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

"Putting It Together" p. 20
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

“I don't duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. If I decide you die, you will die when I choose, where I choose, by what means I choose, and you will never see the blow coming. (…) I don't duel. But if you seek to die like a bludgeoned steer, cross me again.”

Lois McMaster Bujold The Curse of Chalion

The Curse of Chalion (2000)

“God's not here. Somebody's got to fill in.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988)

“She didn't feel anything, no grief or remorse, though her heart was racing and her breath came in gasps. A shocky combat-high, that immortal rush that made men charge machine guns. So this was what the war-addicts came for.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“I don't hate him. I can't say I worship him, either. But when he's cut, I bleed.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

She paused a long time, and looked up to meet her mother’s eyes squarely. “But when he’s cut, I bleed.”

Chapter 12 (p. 184)
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“Mine is not a theology of the elect. I intend to preach to the masses. Even the sinners.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“Pain hurts, sir. I don't court it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

“If it ever came down to exerting power by force, it would mean I'd already lost it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 40)

“I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)

“It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)

“His heart still seemed to ache, the way an overstrained muscle twinged when one put weight on it. Like muscle strain, it would pass with a little rest, he suspected.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)

“Egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Mountains of Mourning (1989)

“I gather from the pattern of her flinches that the late unlamented Tien Vorsoisson was one of those subtle feral parasites who leave their mates scratching their heads and asking, "Am I crazy? Am I crazy?"”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“It is always easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

This seems to be derived from a statement attributed to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, and which she regularly used in her public addresses: "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“"The gods would take him and leave me bereft, and I curse them!"
"I have cursed them for years," said Ista dryly. "Turnabout being fair."”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 379

“For her, this was a metaphor, he reminded himself. Though maybe he was a metaphor too, inside his head with the Black Gang. A metaphor gone metastatic.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“Old age," she said, "is slower than a grenade, but a lot more thorough.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010)

“You are a most excellent lawyer, for a dead man.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Paladin of Souls

Source: Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 296

“Your "accidents," I once noticed, have ways of entangling your enemies that are the green envy of mature and careful strategists. Far too consistent for chance, I concluded it had to be unconscious will.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

“Miles cursed himself silently, then out loud. He really had to try to cultivate a more normal attitude toward senior officers…. When a normal ensign looked at his commander, he ought to see a god-like being, not a, a… future subordinate.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

“I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 11 (p. 162)

“Most days it's just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“Mother Nature gives a sense of romance to young people, in place of prudence, to advance the species. It's a trick—that makes us grow.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

“Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Ethan of Athos (1986)

“I think it (i. e., sainthood) is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one's god.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 224

“The most interesting question of history is always, What were these people thinking?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, (2012)

“I may be small, but I screw up big because I'm standing on the shoulders of GIANTS.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

This evokes the statement by Newton: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

“The shocked silence that followed was decidedly baffled. And even, possibly, a little thoughtful, if that was not too much to hope.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 31

“"Let's see what happens." Yes, let's.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“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.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010)

“From fried witchetty grubs to gold-plated turnips, when you're a writer you never know what's going to appear on your plate next. It keeps a woman alert, it does.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

"Publishing, Writing, and Authoring", p. 75
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

“I've always tried to write the kind of book I most loved to read: character-centered adventure.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", p. 60
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

“It's never too late while you're breathing.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

“I can't quit, once I've started. I've been told I'm pathologically persistent. I can't quit.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“I would be considerably more impressed with your god, dy Cabon," said Ista through her teeth, "if He could have arranged one life's worth of simple protection in advance, rather than three hundred lives' worth of gaudy vengeance afterward.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Paladin of Souls

Source: Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 271

“"I thought they'd never fall asleep." Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. "But they were smiling, when they finally did."”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“Heroes. They sprang up around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

“One of the best things about writing is how it redeems, not to mention recycles, all of one's prior experiences, including — or perhaps especially — the failures.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

"Putting It Together" p. 6
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

“Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

“Right or wrong, what I also saw was that you made an enemy, and left him alive behind you. Great charity. Bad tactics.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 60

“It's… a transcendental act. Making life. I thought about that when I was carrying Miles. 'By this act, I bring one death into the world.' One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“Just because we're adults doesn't automatically mean we can save you…”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988)

“I’d have worn them as a courtesy to your friend, I’ll wear them now as a defiance to our enemies.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Winterfair Gifts (2008)