"“Smoke test?...What’s that?”... “It’s an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project,” Leo explained. “Turn it on, see if it smokes.”"

"He gave himself up to God and pressed the button."

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

"If you ever have to make a choice between learning and inspiration, boy, choose learning. It works more of the time."

"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."

"I don’t know whose judgement is worse, yours or the jerk’s who hired you—"

"The line of logic trailed off in confusion; he turned his thoughts impatiently from it. Mental wheel-spinning, as unproductive as philosophy class in college."

"Of all the times to pick for this outbreak of idiocy, this has gotta be the worst possible. It’s got to be deliberate. Nothing this fouled up could be by chance."

"Were you born inhuman, or did you grow so by degrees—M.S., M.D., Ph.D..."

"Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie-detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal. That’s all."

"On the sixth day God saw He couldn’t do it all, it read, so He created engineers."

"Writing is a very redemptive profession, because all of your mistakes can be reclassified as raw material. ... All those things that went awry become material and become more manageable, psychologically and otherwise. ... My five years I spent wandering around in college and left without a degree (to my parents' dismay) — all turned out to be useful to my career ..."

"There’s an awful a lot of gaming of the list that goes on in book promotion, where you try to make everybody aware of your book at the same time, try to get them to buy it, get it noticed, get it visible. Which is kind of the opposite of the way I’ve written. I’ve not written bestsellers, I’ve written evergreens. Every book I’ve ever written is still in print."

"I am a shy person when allowed. I regard a lot of the PR — s, speeches, appearances, media interviews — with much the same dismay as a non-swimming parent would contemplate the prospect of jumping into a raging torrent to rescue their child. One doesn't really see how any good can come of it, but one can't not jump. ("My baby book, help, it is drowning!") I need to get in touch with my surly side more, I suppose, to learn to say "no" to nice people who like me."

"I cannot emphasize enough that I do not start with a plan or agenda and mechanically manipulate characters and events to carry it out. I set characters in motion, and let them teach me what the book is."

"Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal."

"I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better — when you can get it."

"All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe — if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again."

"Vorreedi, Miles reminded himself, was Intelligence, not Counter-intelligence; curiosity, not paranoia, was his driving force."

"Behavior that is rewarded is repeated. And the reverse."

"You can’t give power away and keep it simultaneously. Except posthumously."

"Lord X was a tyrant, not a revolutionary. He wanted to take over the system, not change it."

"In my experience, milady, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try."

"Rian seemed less and less like a damsel in distress all the time. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he was trying to rescue the dragon."

"Vorreedi stated dangerously, “I am not a mushroom, Lieutenant Vorkosigan.” To be kept in the dark and fed on horseshit, right. Miles sighed inwardly."

"“So use your initiative!” “I don’t have initiative. I follow orders, thank you. It’s much safer.” “Fine, I order you to use your initiative.”"

"“Connection? What possible connection?” “We are the connection, Ivan. A couple of Barrayaran backcountry boys come to the big city, and ripe for the plucking. Somebody is using us. And I think somebody... has just made a major mistake in his choice of tools.” Or fools."

"“I made up a lot of instant barbarian folklore—I told ’em a Vor prides himself on self-control, that it’s not considered polite on Barrayar for a man to, you know, before his lady has. Three times. It was considered insulting to her. I stroked, I rubbed, I scratched, I recited poetry, I nuzzled and nibbled and—cripes, my fingers are cramped.” His speech was a bit slurred, too, Miles noticed. “I thought they’d never fall asleep.” Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. “But they were smiling, when they finally did.”"

"“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Not when the enemy is me."

"He knew now why they called it “falling in love.” There was the same nauseating vertigo of free fall, the same vast exhilaration, the same sick certainty of broken bones upon impact with a rapidly rising reality."

"All in all, it was probably a good thing these youths had no political interests. They were just the sort of people who started revolutions but could not finish them, their idealism betrayed by their incompetence."

"“Do me the honor of grasping that I may just possibly know what I’m doing!” I wish to hell I knew what I was doing. Intuition was nothing but the subconscious processing of subliminal clues, he was fairly sure, but I feel it in my bones made too uncomfortably thin a public defense for his actions."

"“Hands are to be hired. Design is the test of the intellect.” “I must disagree. In my experience, hands are integral with brains, almost another lobe for intelligence. What one does not know through one’s hands, one does not truly know.”"

"Hi, I’m a hero, but I can’t tell you why. It’s classified."

"“Ensign Vorkosigan,” Illyan sighed. It seems you still have a little problem with subordination.” “I know, sir. I’m sorry.” “Do you ever intend to do anything about it besides feel sorry?” “I can’t help it, sir, if people give me the wrong orders.”"

"He leaned forward to put his elbows on the comconsole, and lace his fingers together, and regarded Miles with a kind of clinical disapproval, as if he were a data point that messed up the curve, and Illyan was deciding if he could still save the theory by re-classifying him as experimental error."

"The arrow of justice flies one way."