Lois McMaster Bujold quotes - page 8

Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
I have denied my eyes, both inner and outer. I am not a child, or virgin, or modest wife, fearing to offend. No one owns my eyes now but me. If I have not the stomach by now to look upon any sight in the world, good or evil, beautiful or vile, when shall I? It is far too late for innocence. My only hope is the much more painful consolation of wisdom. Which can grow out of knowledge alone. Give me my true eyes. I want to see. I have to know. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
How could I have died and gone to hell without noticing the transition? View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
The deadly weapon seemed unnaturally light and easy in his hand. Something that lethal should have more heft, like a broadsword. Wrong, for murder to be so potentially effortless - one ought to at least have to grunt for it. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
The last thing a monster wanted was a fellow to follow him around all day long with a mirror. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
The gods... the gods may forgive much, to a truly penitent heart." Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. "The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves." View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
Cynicism did not seem nearly so impressively daring to her now as it had when she was twenty. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
I was never a mercenary, not ever. Not for one single minute. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
Like integrity, love of life was not a subject to be studied, it was a contagion to be caught. And you had to catch it from someone who had it. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
You can't choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
I have no idea why some of my books draw awards and others don't, except that the ones I spent the least time worrying about other people's response to - that I wrote for myself - seem to do the best of all. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Let he who is without sin cast the first lure. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
Parallels, spirals, and reflections are some of my favorite literary patterns. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
I don't duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. If I decide you die, you will die when I choose, where I choose, by what means I choose, and you will never see the blow coming. (...) I don't duel. But if you seek to die like a bludgeoned steer, cross me again. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
A price is something you get. A cost is something you lose. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
Behavior that is rewarded is repeated. And the reverse. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
The gods would take him and leave me bereft, and I curse them!" "I have cursed them for years," said Ista dryly. "Turnabout being fair. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
You are a most excellent lawyer, for a dead man. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
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. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
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. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
The most interesting question of history is always, What were these people thinking? (Lois McMaster Bujold)
The shocked silence that followed was decidedly baffled. And even, possibly, a little thoughtful, if that was not too much to hope. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
It's never too late while you're breathing. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
I would be considerably more impressed with your god, dy Cabon," said Ista through her teeth, "if He could have arranged one life's worth of simple protection in advance, rather than three hundred lives' worth of gaudy vengeance afterward. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold
Heroes. They sprang up around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold