Lois McMaster Bujold

"He had looked forward to making posthumous reports to Illyan. Now he wondered if he was going to live long enough."

"They hesitated. Ah, the downside of perfect obedience: crippled initiative."

"Sometimes, insanity is not a tragedy. Sometimes, it’s a strategy for survival. Sometimes...it’s a triumph."

"Lilly had promised him that her stimulants would buy him six hours of coherence, after which the metabolic bill would be delivered by hulking bio-thugs with spiked clubs, virtual repo-men for his neurotransmitter debt."

"I don’t regret knowing myself, ma’am. I don’t even regret…being myself."

"Mother Nature gives a sense of romance to young people, in place of prudence, to advance the species. It’s a trick—that makes us grow."

"It wasn’t fair, for people to go and change on him, while his back was turned being dead. To change without giving notice, or even asking permission."

"You can’t just…ignore them out of existence though apparently that’s exactly what you’ve been attempting."

"“If you can’t win, change the game.” Ivan twitched a brow upward. “If there’s no game, isn’t winning a pretty meaningless concept?”"

"Was winning all he really wanted? Or did he still want also to be seen to have won? And by whom?"

"How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old? Too damaged."

"“‘Most men,’” he quoted, “‘are of naught more use in their lives but as machines for turning food into shit.’” Ivan cocked an eyebrow at him. “Who said that? Your grandfather?” “Leonardo da Vinci,” Miles returned primly. But was compelled to add, “Grandfather quoted it to me, though.”"

"“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?” “Is that a promise?” She picked up a pebble, fingered it, and tossed it into the water. The moon-lines bloomed and danced. “It’s an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on.”"

"General. Prudence is one thing. Paranoia that can’t tell friend from foe is quite another."

"Suicide wasn’t an option for me anymore, I found. Not like good old adolescent angst. I’m no longer of the secret opinion that death will somehow overlook me if I don’t do something personally about it. And give life…it seems stupid not to make the most of what I do have. Not to mention deucedly ungrateful."

"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant."

"His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it."

"I elect to be…myself."

"Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart."

"I was never a mercenary, not ever. Not for one single minute."

"People complaining about their spouses always looked and sounded so ugly."

"Power corrupts, but we want energy."

"Then he had accused her of sleeping with her women friends. That had broken something in her at last, some will to desire his good opinion. How could you argue sense into someone who believed something not because it was true, but because he was an idiot? No amount of panicky protestation or indignant denial or futile attempt to prove a negative was likely to help, because the problem was not in the accused but in the accuser. She began then to believe he was living in a different universe, one with a different set of physical laws, perhaps, and an alternate history. And very different people from the ones she met of the same name. Smarmy doppelgangers all."

"To this day she didn’t know if he taken her disgusted refusal to defend herself for a covert admission of guilt."

"“Does it seem strange…does it give you a very different view of your parents, to see them on vid?” “No,” he said. “It gives me a very different view of holovids.”"

"“They seem more like toys than jewels, but I have to admit, they’re striking.” “Oh, yes, a typical tech toy. High-end this year, everywhere next year, nowhere after that, till the antiquarians’ revival.”"

"Once you had delegated the best people to do a job for you, you had to trust both them and your judgment."

"I am not here to vent my feelings. I am here to achieve my goals."

"Real expertise, the kind that means you can’t be intimidated or, or…persuaded to go along with something stupid because you think everyone in the universe knows more than you do."

"Aim high. You may still miss the target but at least you won’t shoot your foot off."

"Oh hell. Have you fallen in love with this woman, idiot boy? Um. Yeah. He’d been falling for days, he realized in retrospect. It was just that he’d finally hit the ground."

"Just like swatting flies with a laser cannon. The aim’s a bit tricky, but it sure takes care of the flies."

"She probably felt about matrimony the way Miles felt about needle-grenade launchers."

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

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Oh yes. This was going to do well. If there was one thing Tsipis appreciated, it was a quick study. Ekaterin was one of those show once people whom Miles, in his mercenary days, had found more precious than unexpected oxygen in the emergency reserve."

"Miles was plenty expressive too, in his own unreliable way. Half of it was horseshit, but you were never sure which half."

"All Mark knew was that if it came down to a choice between Kareen and oxygen, he’d prefer to give up oxygen, thanks."

"“He told Mark he’s courting her in secret,” Martya put in to the Vorbrettens. “It’s a secret from her. We’re all still trying to figure that one out.” “Is the entire city party to my private conversations?” Miles snarled. “I’m going to strangle Mark.” Martya blinked at him with manufactured innocence. “Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you’re trying to keep a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone?”"

"If you’re just now finding out that this world is unjust, well, you’re behind the times."

"It is always easier to get forgiveness than permission."

"As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor."