Quotes from Lois McMaster Bujold

He's not too short. He's just... concentrated.

Utterly bleak and black is not the sum of realism. All the other colors are real, too.

Miles added it to his life's lessons list. Call it Rule 27B. Never make key tactical decisions while having electro-convulsive seizures.

Not all prisons are made of iron bars, some are made of feather beds.

Miles was…the thing is, he was afflicted with a severe birth injury. He grew up pretty much crippled, so he poured all his frustrated energy into his intellect. Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving , the effect was pretty frightening. And it worked for him, so he did it some more.

It's a . . . transcendental act. Making life. . . . 'By this act, I bring one death into the world.' One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between. . . . Our children change us . . . whether they live or not.

Change is possible.' 'Change is inevitable.

He was shaken by an unwelcome insight. Lives did not add as integers. They added as infinities.

So the difference between a criminal and a hero is the order in which their vile crimes are committed. And justice comes with a sell-by date. In that case, you'd better hurry. You wouldn't want your heroism to spoil.

the gods did not desire flawless souls, but great ones. I think that very darkness is where the greatness grows from, as flowers from the soil. I am not sure, in fact, if greatness can bloom without it.

All true wealth is biological (Aral Vorkosigan)

I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back.

Pym! The Countess spotted a new victim, and her voice went a little dangerous. I seconded you to look after Miles. Would you care to explain this scene? There was a thoughtful pause. In a voice of simple honesty, Pym replied, No, Milady.

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

stupidity can be as bad as malice

I am not schizoid. A little manic-depressive, maybe. 'Know thyself.' We try, sir.

Never underestimate the human capacity for wishful thinking and willful blindness,' said Miles. Such as a whole society of people who became so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?

It's just a thing. You deal with it. As in, one damn thing after another? Yes, very like.

The most important thing about quests, he decided, was not in finding what you went looking for, but in finding what you never could have imagined before you ventured forth.

Real destiny takes everything—the last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sure—and gives it back doubled. Quadrupled. A thousand-fold! But you can't give halves. You have to give it all. I know. I swear. I've come back from the dead to speak the truth to you. Real destiny gives you a mountain of life, and puts you on top of it.

integrity is a disease, and you can only catch it from someone who has it.

Emperors per se did not unnerve Miles . . . . Emperor Gregor had been raised along with Miles practically as his foster-brother; somewhere in the back of Miles's mind the term emperor was coupled with such identifiers as somebody to play hide-and-seek with . In this context those hidden assumptions could be a psychosocial land mine.

You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on. What do you find on the other side? When you go on? She shrugged. Your life again. What else?

We are all of us, every one, our own works; we present our souls to our Patrons at the ends of our lives as an artisan presents the works of his hands.