Quotes from Lois McMaster Bujold

And how many cases where no one came back, making nothing to remark? No tale worth repeating? One hundred to one? Five hundred to one? The exception always gets more attention than the rule. I'm not sure you should race off down this road too quickly.

Pen told the tale, again; the repetition was beginning to seem more like the memory of a memory than the thing itself.

In a voice not his own, as resonant in this cell as the reverberations in a bass drum, Iroki said, 'Take better care of my gift this time, child. You're going to need it.' The sense but not the sound of an immense belly laugh, tidal, oceans deep. And then as vast as the presence, somehow vaster, absence. The emptiness left was like a room stripped of its very air. One would weep for the loss if one could only breathe.

Ivan had never thought of his nightmares as being insufficiently imaginative, before tonight. Dark, wet, constricted, underground, check. How had he left out biohazards? After all that, the frigging unexploded bomb just seemed a . . . a redundant redundancy. And the stray corpse a mere decoration. How did I get into this mess? Miles isn't even here.

Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice—if not whether, then how, they may endure.

Head in the direction you wish to arrive. Don't divert or divide yourself for a degree in English (unless you want to be a teacher) or articles in the local paper (unless you want to be a journalist). You become a fiction writer by writing fiction.

Damned technocrats. Nothing but horse doctors with a more expensive set of toys.

they would make her own short body look like a dwarf dragging a curtain.

If only the president hadn't tried to dodge, he would have been all right. As it was, the toe of her jackboot caught him in the groin with perfect unplanned accuracy. His mouth made a soundless "O" and he went down behind the rostrum. Cordelia

He wouldn't say pray, as he'd decided long ago not to bother the gods with questions when he didn't really want to hear the answers.

Lordship comes too easy, for some. And it was lordship near slew the world.

To a man of a certain age, Cazaril, all young ladies start to look delightful. It's the first symptom of senility.

They embraced each other so tightly, they had to back off to manage a kiss. "Don't you ever," he said, voice husky with strain, "pull a stunt like that again." "Don't you ever let it become necessary, again." "Deal." He held her face away from his, between his hands, his eyes devouring her. "I was so afraid for you, I forgot to be afraid for your enemies. I should have remembered. Dear Captain.

On the third, we got into troubles. Baz Jesek had gotten more and more involved with equipment and maintenance—he is a good engineer, I'll give him that—I was tactical commander, and Oser—I thought by default, but now I think design—took up the administrative slack. Could have been good, each doing what he did best, if Oser'd been working with and not against us. In the same situation, I'd have sent assassins. Oser employed guerilla accountants.

Every breath you take from this moment on is by my mercy. Every bite of food you eat, by Harra's charity. By charity and mercy—such as you did not give—you shall live. Dead woman.

A little time passed, with nothing to distract him from the full enjoyment and appreciation of his new array of physical sensations. He'd thought he'd sampled every sort of agony in the catalogue, but the goons' shock-sticks had found out nerves and synapses and ganglial knots he'd never known he possessed. Nothing like pain, to concentrate the attention upon the self.

The blade left him; a warm gush of liquid spurted from the mouth of his wound after it. Cazaril had hoped to pass out, but he only swayed as pads were clapped to him and held hard fore and aft.

Yet loyalty must run two ways, or else become betrayal in the egg.

People can get almost anything wrong," sighed Oswyl. "Theology cannot be an exception.

Every day was a gift, each year a miracle. She was living her whole life as a smash-and-grab, and he heartily approved.

How was your bone-replacement surgery? asked Illyan. About what I expected, from having my legs done before. The ugliest part was opening my right arm and hand up to pick out all the bone fragments. Tedious. The left went a lot faster — the pieces were bigger.

La mayoría de los hombres no son más que máquinas que convierten la comida en mierda» —citó. Ivan le miró alzando una ceja. —¿Quién dijo eso? ¿Tu abuelo? —Leonardo da Vinci —respondió Miles al momento. Pero se vio obligado a añadir—: Pero mi abuelo me lo citó a mí

Do not deny the gods. And they will not deny you." As Oswyl stared at him, he went on, "Dangerous habit, mind you. Once you start to let Them in through that first crack, They're worse than mice.

Mark, no se paga a los padres. No se puede. La deuda que les debes la asumen tus hijos, que la pasan a su vez. Es una especie de cadena. Y si no tienes hijos, queda como deuda a la humanidad. O a tu Dios, si posees o eres poseído por uno