Lois McMaster Bujold
American author of science fiction and fantasy works, most noted for the works in her Vorkosigan Saga.
You have a reputation as a bold Barrayaran barbarian—say that six times really fast—too dangerous to let loose.
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.
The entire center of her life was a blackened waste, its long years not to be recovered nor replaced.
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."
Behavior that is rewarded is repeated. And the reverse.
It's never too late while you're breathing.
There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around in merely very, very irritating.
The last thing a monster wanted was a fellow to follow him around all day long with a mirror.
How could I have died and gone to hell without noticing the transition?
My home is not a place, it is people.
And you could just watch men begin to see what he told them they were seeing, whether it was there or not.
I’d have worn them as a courtesy to your friend, I’ll wear them now as a defiance to our enemies.
Marriage was a lottery, and you drew your lot in late adolescence or early adulthood at a point of maximum idiocy and confusion.
Reading is an active and elusive experience. Every reader, reading exactly the same text, will have a slightly different reading experience depending on what s/he projects into the words s/he sees, what strings of meaning and association those words call up in his/her (always) private mind. One can never therefore, talk about the quality of a book separately from the quality of the mind that is creating it by reading it, in the only place books live, in the secret mind.
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.
Most days it's just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts.
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.
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.
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.
Surely only correct understanding could lead to correct action.