Lois McMaster Bujold: Timing

“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.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

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.

Pleasure , Business , Time

“Interim reports tend to elicit orders. Which you must either then obey, or spend valuable time and energy evading, which you could be using to solve the problem.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)
Context: No, no, never send interim reports. Only final ones. Interim reports tend to elicit orders. Which you must either then obey, or spend valuable time and energy evading, which you could be using to solve the problem.

Problem , Time

“Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

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?

Life , Pain , Question , Time

“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?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Life , Pain , Question , Time

“When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The warrior's Apprentice

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Faith , Way , Time

“All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Komarr

Source: Komarr