Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes

"Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't Panic."
"I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining .

The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.

If you can't do what you want, do what you can.

I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop.

Now, there's this about cynicism, Sergeant. It's the universe's most supine moral position. Real comfortable. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not doing it, and you can lie there and stink to yourself in perfect peace.

"There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap."
"Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So — how did you make them stop?"
"You can't make them — whoever your particular them is — do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard."

Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it.

Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.

"Miles exhaled carefully, faint with rage and reminded grief. He does not know, he told himself. He cannot know... "Ivan, one of these days somebody is going to pull out a weapon and plug you, and you're going to die in bewilderment, crying, "What did I say? What did I say?"

"What did I say?" asked Ivan indignantly.

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.

Not that I haven't leaped up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It's sustaining the altitude that defeats me.

"It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture."

The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistakes, as if my maidenhood were responsible for my ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.

If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?

Poets speak of hope in ladies smiles, but give me a smirk any day, I say.