Quotes from Lois McMaster Bujold

Sorry things got so messy," Miles apologized. "I realize how it must burn you to have your opponent blunder to victory. I'd have preferred something neater and more tactical myself, like Komarr, but I had to take the situation as I found it." Tung snorted. "Who wouldn't? Who do you think you are? Lord Vorkosigan?" Miles

By the time Miles had showered, groomed, and donned a fresh uniform and glossy spare boots, his pills had cut in and he was feeling no pain at all. When he caught himself whistling as he splashed on aftershave and adjusted a rather flashy and only demi-regulation black silk scarf around his neck, tucked into his gray-and-white jacket, he decided he'd better cut the dosage in half next round. He was feeling much too good.

Al sexto día, Dios vio que no podía hacer todo, entonces creó a los ingenieros

I don't suppose you could have picked some more public way to self-destruct? Attempted to assassinate the Emperor with your pocketknife during the Birthday Review, say, or raped a sheep in the Great Square during rush hour?

Cordelia shivered, and Oliver glanced at her in concern. "Cold, Cordelia? You shouldn't be standing around wet.

Hell, you had to at least achieve monogamy before you could go on to larger ambitions. So far he had failed to attach even one woman to his sawed-off person. Of course, nearly three years in covert ops, and the period before that in the all-male environs of the military academy, had limited his opportunities. Nice

He'd never been serious about twelve; he'd just figured to start with that proposition, and fall back to six. His mother, his aunt, and what seemed every other female of his acquaintance had all mobilized to explain to him that he was insane, but Ekaterin had merely smiled.

he was getting mortally tired of having to reinvent the wheel every fifteen minutes.

Shall I ask Captain Ungari if he wants to volunteer?" inquired Illyan with a suppressed ripple of his lips. "No. You will operate independently. God help us. After all, if I don't send you someplace else, you'll be right here. So the scheme has that much merit even if the Dendarii never do anything.

We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods—all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.

She would do her marriage then, hour by hour and day by day with the work of her hands, and let the wishing fall where it would.

She was not the first woman he'd met who endured dire pain in disturbing silence

It came to Tej then, belatedly, that Lady Alys had just spent much of the prior conversation slowly, gently, and thoroughly roasting her son.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll be able to handle Garnet Five. Just be your usual charming self." Ekaterin's vision of him, he reminded himself, was not exactly objective. Thank God. "I've been trying to charm quaddies all day, with no noticeable success." "If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back. And Nicol will be playing in the orchestra tonight.

The gods have no hands but ours, they say.

Miles," said Bel's voice, seeming to come from a long way off, "if you're going to pass out, put your head down." "Between my knees," choked Miles, "and kiss my ass goodbye. Bel, do you know what that sigil is?

He was not, he assured himself, in shock about this. There were limits even to his capacity for self-dramatization, after all. He was a little unbalanced, perhaps, like a man accustomed to leaning on a decorative cane having it suddenly snatched away.

Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving

It was just like Uncle Vorthys to have provided this comfort for her; he did nothing by halves. No artificial shortages, she could almost hear him enthusiastically booming, though he usually recited that slogan in reference to desserts.

She possessed no more answers than he did, but he admired her talent for finding very uncomfortable questions.

Men whose mistakes could kill more people, faster; but still, just men.

There's all of us adults, and one of him. We ought to be able to keep up. Why do I feel like he has us outnumbered and surrounded?

The curse takes a hundred forms, twisting each good thing that should be Orico's according to the weaknesses of its nature. A wife grown barren instead of fertile. A chief advisor corrupt instead of loyal. Friends fickle instead of true, food that sickens instead of strengthening, and on and on.

Do not deny the gods. And they will not deny you.