Lois McMaster Bujold
American author of science fiction and fantasy works, most noted for the works in her Vorkosigan Saga.
The good face pain. But the great — they embrace it.
'It didn't work, so let's do it some more'? In my line of work, they call that military stupidity. I don't know what they call it in civilian life.
"Is this guy for real?"
"He thinks he's faking it, but he's not."
Aren't family squabbles jolly fun? Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.
Now there's this about cynicism, Sergeant. It's the universe's most supine moral position. Real comfortable. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not doing it, and you can lie there and stink to yourself in perfect peace.
When you can see the colors of the feathers, you'll also understand how you can expand your borders to infinity.
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.
If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?
East is west, up is down, and being falsely arrested for getting your C.O.'s throat cut is a simplification. I must be on Barrayar.
You can't choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle.
A price is something you get. A cost is something you lose.
Adversity does teach who your real friends are.
The will to be stupid is a very powerful force.
Yeah, so I'm short. But wait'll you see me dance.
I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.
"Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you.
Miles cursed himself silently, then out loud. He really had to try to cultivate a more normal attitude toward senior officers.... When a normal ensign looked at his commander, he ought to see a god-like being, not a, a... future subordinate.
Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.
"Just what kind of noose are you offering to put round my neck, here? Is this treason?"
"Worse," Cazaril sighed. "Theology."
With all this manure around, there's got to be a pony someplace.