Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes

And what is the most important leg of a three-legged stool? The one that is missing, of course.

Shooting people was such a stupid activity, why should everybody—anybody!—be so impressed? Silver wondered irritably. You would think she had done something truly great, like discover a new treatment for black stem-rot.

“I could bring almost nothing—I scarcely knew what to choose.”
“Think of the vast amounts of money we shall save on shipping charges, then.”

Clearly, you could die while waiting for other people to start your life for you.

He loathed letting her push his buttons; still, she had a valid point: cover-your-ass was a fundamental rule for survival even of the fittest.

We make our own luck. And it’s my responsibility to see it’s good and not bad.

“We’ve run into a problem, Leo.”
“But of course. Who ever tracks me down to impart good news?

“The trouble with you, Ti,” lectured Leo kindly, “is that you lack teaching experience. If you had, you’d have faith that the most unlikely people can learn the most amazing things.”

The quaddies, he reflected, didn’t seem to have a very clear idea of private property. Probably came from a lifetime spent in a communal space habitat, with its tight ecology. Planets were communal in the same way, really, except that their enormous size put so much slack in their systems, it was disguised.

God’s not here. Somebody’s got to fill in.

This isn’t a class. This is real life.

Even soldiers in battle have to be brought to a special state of mental excitement to shoot total strangers.

There are weapons all around us here, we just don’t recognize them because we call them “tools.”

GalacTech’s not God, Claire. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your firstborn to it.

Claire, listen to me. The proper response to Bruce isn’t suicide, it’s murder.