All Quotes

"Knowledge might not be power, but ignorance was definitely weakness, and so was poverty."

"One’s career might depend solely on one’s own efforts, but marriage was a lottery, and you drew your lot in late adolescence or early adulthood at a point of maximum idiocy and confusion. Perhaps it was just as well. If people were too sensible, the human race might well come to an end. Evolution favored the maximum production of children, not of happiness."

"He consoled himself with the reflection that it was seldom he found himself in company who made him feel this stupid. It was probably good for his soul."

"“Have you determined if it is meant to be a weapon at all?” she said. “We’ve got some very dead people to account for,” Miles pointed out. “That, alas, does not necessarily require a weapon.” Professor Vorthys said. “Carelessness, stupidity, haste, and ignorance are quite as powerfully destructive forces as homicidal intent.”"

"People have some very odd illusions about power. Mostly it consists of finding a parade and nipping over to place yourself at the head of the band. Just as eloquence consists of persuading people of things they desperately want to believe. Demagoguery, I suppose, is eloquence sliding to some least moral energy level."

"If you could go back in time and change things… The only moment in time you could change things was the elusive now, which slipped through your fingers as fast as you could think about it."

"The hostage game is a bad game, a sad and ugly game that’s a lot easier to start than end. The worst versions I’ve seen ended up with neither side in control, or getting anything they wanted. And the people who stand to lose the most in it frequently aren’t even playing."

"He's not even a mad scientist. He's merely a very upset engineer."

"“I’m planning my course work for the next session at university. I was too late to start this summer, so I’ll begin in the fall. There’s so much to choose from. I feel so ignorant.” “Educated is what you aim to be coming out, not going in.”"

"The parents of the preceding generation had taken galactic sex-selection technologies much too far in their foolish passion for male heirs, and the very sons they’d so cherished—Miles’s contemporaries—had inherited the resulting mating mess. Go to any formal party in Vorbarr Sultana these days, and you could practically taste the damned testosterone in the air, volatilized by the alcohol no doubt."

"He couldn’t make this go faster by pushing harder."

"Then time ran out—no. Time ran on. There was no end to time. But you come to the end of yourself, and time runs on, and leaves you."

"“Why are you here, Ivan?” He added under his breath, “and why couldn’t three bodyguards keep you out? Do I have to give orders to shoot to kill?” “My strength is great because my cause is just,” Vorpatril informed him. “My mother has sent me with a list of chores for you as long as my arm. With footnotes.”"

"I’ve seen planetary invasion plans less complex than what’s being booted about for this Imperial Wedding."

"I propose a treaty. You can have all the rest of the women in the universe. I just want this one."

"He must not be in one of his voluble moods. Either you can’t turn him on or can’t turn him off. Well, if there was a choice, taciturn was probably safer for the innocent bystanders than spring-wound."

"Mark had a Thing about Miles. Thing was not accepted psychoscientific terminology, she’d been informed by his twinkling therapist, but there was scarcely another term with the scope and flexibility to take in the whole complexity of the…Thing."

"You had to admire their honesty. No wonder they did so well at the sciences."

"“I thought he was a bit creepy.” Kareen stiffened. If you’d been cloned a slave, raised by terrorists to be a murderer, trained by methods tantamount to physical and psychological torture, and had to kill people to escape, you’d likely seem a little creepy too. If you weren’t a twitching puddle."

"Kareen was by no means sure Mark was a potential husband. He was still working his heart out on becoming a potential human being."

"She’d made it clear that Things Would Be Done Properly. The problem came in defining the term Properly."

"We don’t just march on the future, we charge it."

"Pain hurts, sir. I don’t court it."

"He’s not like anything, Ahn. He’s the original."

"When a normal ensign looked at his commander, he ought to see a godlike being, not a, a...future subordinate. New ensigns were supposed to be a subhuman species anyway."

"If we shouldn’t do it, we shouldn’t be able to do it."

"Those who do not know their history, his thought careened, are doomed to keep stepping in it. Alas, so were those who did, it seemed."

"A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind."

"The facts appear to be mutating every forty minutes. like bacteria."

"Your moral scruples may be admirable, Miles, but I’m not sure I can afford them."

"“Other than that, how was Kiril Island, Ensign Vorkosigan?” inquired the Count. “You didn’t vid home much, your mother noticed.” “I was busy. Lessee. The climate was ferocious, the terrain was lethal, a third of the population including my immediate superior was dead drunk most of the time. The average IQ equalled the mean temperature in degrees cee, there wasn’t a woman for five hundred kilometers in any direction, and the base commander was a homicidal psychotic. Other than that, it was lovely.”"

"“This isn’t a good war game, Dad says,” commented Miles. “Not enough random factors and uncontrolled surprises to simulate reality.”"

"Mercenaries thrive on other people’s chaos."

"The job was interesting for a week, while he was learning it, mind-numbing after that."

"Geography is the mother of strategy."

"Your “accidents,” I once noticed, have ways of entangling your enemies that are the green envy of mature and careful strategists. Far too consistent for chance, I concluded it had to be unconscious will."

"Yes, well…actual combat…is a lot stupider than I’d imagined. If two groups can cooperate to the incredible extent it takes to meet in battle, why not put in a tenth that effort to talk?"

"War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It’s peace that’s wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with."

"There is no moral difference between ordering an execution, and carrying it out."

"“The key of strategy, little Vor,” she explained kindly, “is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.”"

"I may be small, but I screw up big because I’m standing on the shoulders of GIANTS."

"“Face like an angel, mind like a rabid mongoose?” Oser’s lips twitched very slightly. “You’ve met her.”"

"“Is she pretty?” “Yeah, if you happen to like blond power-mad homicidal maniacs, I suppose she could be quite overwhelming.”"

"I don’t think I’m destined to die today. I must be being saved for day after tomorrow."

"“Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it’ll look on your next resume.” “On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You’re going to cover my funeral expenses, son?” “Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla.” Tung sighed. “Make it plum wine to float the boat, eh? Drink the beer.”"

"“Damn,” said Elena in a hushed voice. “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were Mad Yuri’s understudy. The look on your face…am I reading too much into all that innuendo, or did you in fact just connive to assassinate Gregor in one breath, offer to cuckold him in the next, accuse your father of homosexuality, suggest a patricidal plot against him, and league yourself with Cavilo—what are you going to do for an encore?” “Depends on the straight lines. I can hardly wait to find out,” Miles panted. “Was I convincing?” “You were scary.” “Good.”"

"Rule 1: Only overrule the tactical computer if you know something it doesn’t. Rule 2: The tac comp always knows more than you do."

"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

"Beware of wishing for justice. You might get it."

"She could be the only person on Barrayar to automatically put Gregor the man before Gregor the emperor. All our ranks look like optical illusions to her, I think."