Lois McMaster Bujold quotes - page 7

Hunting hawks do not belong in cages, no matter how much a man covets their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They are far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
He gave me no sign. I was never the sort to receive portents, or to delude myself that I had. Silence was always my portion, in return for my prayers.
Lois McMaster Bujold
And you could just watch men begin to see what he told them they were seeing, whether it was there or not.
Lois McMaster Bujold
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.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Just what kind of noose are you offering to put round my neck, here? Is this treason?" "Worse," Cazaril sighed. "Theology.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Some fortunate, prolific writers seem to be able, efficiently, to keep several projects going at once; it appears I am not one of them.
Lois McMaster Bujold
All true wealth is biological.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I guess it just doesn't look very heroic to sneak up behind somebody and shoot them in the back. I can't help thinking it would be more efficient, though.
Lois McMaster Bujold
It just happens to be very important to me to win with the hand I was dealt.
Lois McMaster Bujold
If suspicion was the deadliest possible insult, then trust was always right, even if it was mistaken.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
He said that permitting private judgments to turn my duty in the smallest matter would be just like getting a little bit pregnant - that the consequences would very soon get beyond me.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The confusion of mind you dub honor is a disease.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Government by thugs in the Bloody Centuries gave Barrayar many colorful historical incidents, suitable for high drama. I don't think it's a drama we wish to return to in real life.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Men may move mountains, but ideas move men.
Lois McMaster Bujold
In my experience, milady, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try.
Lois McMaster Bujold
A skilled soldier kills your enemies, but a skilled duelist kills your allies.
Lois McMaster Bujold
He gave himself up to God and pressed the button.
Lois McMaster Bujold
One scarcely knows if he would be of more use to us as a hostage, or set loose to be a very bad enemy leader.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The joys of command - well, you know. You taught them to me. One part glory to ten parts shoveling manure.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Not all books are created equal, and for the special ones, you begin to know it sometimes even before the work is finished, but always by the time you slam that last line home and shriek, "Done! Done!," and fall head-down across your keyboard like the runner from Marathon. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
The entire center of her life was a blackened waste, its long years not to be recovered nor replaced.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you.
Lois McMaster Bujold
And what goes on in the head of a walking dead man? What personal failure could he possibly fear more than death itself?
Lois McMaster Bujold
Lots of us SF-types like the idea of traveling to the Future (although, having now done so once myself -- the hard way -- I'm less sure), but why do we imagine the Future would want us? Oh, a few 21st-century Icemen, perhaps, as historical curiosities, but in our hundreds of millions? It would be like the greatest wave of immigration ever, but from the past into other people's Now. It might seem to them like sacrificing resources needed for their children to their great-great-great-grandparents. Counter-evolutionary, among other things.
Lois McMaster Bujold