Lois McMaster Bujold

"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."

"“I’m afraid of power…” Gregor’s voice went low, contemplative. “You aren’t afraid of power, you’re afraid of hurting people. If you wield that power,” Miles deduced suddenly. “Huh. Close guess.” “Not dead-on?” “I’m afraid I might enjoy it. The hurting.”"

"The arrow of justice flies one way."

"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."

"“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.”"

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

"“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.”"

"“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."

"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."

"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."

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

"“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.”"

"“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."

"“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.”"

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"“The best strategies run on rails like that.” Miles pointed out. “Live or die, you make your goal.”"

"“How did your mother cope, Lord Vorkosigan?” “You mean, being an egalitarian Betan and all? No problem. She says egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats.”"

"“Do you know what this is, Lord Vorkosigan?” Giaja asked. Miles eyed the medallion of the Order of Merit on its colored ribbon, glittering on a bed of velvet. “Yes, sir. It is a lead weight, suitable for sinking small enemies. Are you going to sew me into a silk sack with it, before you throw me overboard?”"

"“Good luck,” snorted Ivan. “Luck is something you make for yourself, if you want it.”"

"Women. Uterine replicators with legs, as it were."

"The rest of the universe was disappointing at first glance."

"Some places have religion. Here we have safety drills."

"There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else."

"As long as I’m going to commit a crime, let it be a perfect one."

"Quinn ignored the admonition with a verve bordering, Ethan thought, on the anti-social."

"Life with women did not just induce strange behavior, it appeared; it induced very strange behavior."

"Innocence might be bliss, but ignorance was demonstrably hell."

"A fool is twice a fool who tries to conceal it."

"Ethan had never found himself clinging to a cusp of human history. The trouble with the position, he found, was that in whatever direction you looked there fell away a glassy, uncontrollable slide down to a strange future you would then have to live in. He had never wanted to pray more, nor been less sure that it would do any good."

"“The probabilities would now seem to lean that way,” agreed Millisor. “I doubt everything, you see.” Ethan thought this over. “Encountering the truth must be horribly confusing for you, then.” Millisor’s lips twitched dryly. “Fortunately, it happens very seldom.”"

"Do not mistake charm for virtue."

"Curiosity is not a theological virtue."

"“I was just a little taken aback. That—that wasn’t the proposition I was expecting, is all. Excuse me. I fear I am become incurably low-minded.” “You can’t help that, I’m sure,” Ethan said tolerantly. “Being female, and all that.”"

"Change is a function of time and experience, and time is implacable."

"If you can’t be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart."

"“Some party,” commented Bel. “I went to a pet show with an atmosphere like this once.”"

"Miles was no musician, but even he could sense an intensity of passion in the playing that went beyond talent, reaching for genius."

"It’s not what you don’t know that’ll hurt you, the old saying went. It’s what you do know that isn’t so."

"One maneuvers to the limit, but the golden moment demands action. If you miss it, the gods damn you forever. and vice versa."

"Devotion to duty, or pragmatic ruthlessness, which was which? He would never know, now."

"He had his idea-fixee now, and its ramifications and his rage were an effective block against incoming data."

"How could I have died and gone to hell without noticing the transition?"