Quotes by Lois McMaster Bujold

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”

“When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.”

“Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.”

“[Koudelka] looked back, "You?! I know you! You trust beyond reason!"[Cordelia] met his eyes steadily, "Yes, it's how I get results beyond hope, as you may recall.”

“Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You goin...”

“Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion.”

“But though youd never starve your body to wasting and still expect to go on, you starve your heart, yet act as though you can still draw on it forever without the debt ever coming due. If you fallw...”

“(Watching her) was a little like watching water lilies; rather more like smelling a dinner he was not allowed to eat. Was it possible to be starved for so long as to forget the taste of food, for t...”

“Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook everyone neatly, like eggs in their shells. (Mark Vorkosigan's first experience with warfare, on seei...”

“Barrayar is bred in my bones. I cannot shake it, no matter how far I travel. This struggle, God knows, has no honor in it. But exile, for no other motive than easethat would be to give up all hope ...”

“You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it...”

“Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came. And that they will return when the earth is entirely cleansed of its spawn. If you believe in gods.""Do you?""I belie...”

“Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal.”

“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.”

“It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you were aiming for.”

“I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.”

“I'm afraid even ImpSec has no explanation for women's tastes in men.”

“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.”

“Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are.”

“Real destiny takes everythingthe last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sureand gives it back doubled. Quadrupled. A thousand-fold! But you can't give halves. You have to give it all. I...”