543 quotes
“All right,” Miles pulled Suegar to his feet, “let’s go preach to the unconverted.”
Suegar laughed suddenly. “I had a top kick once who used to say, ‘Let’s go kick some ass,’ in just that tone of voice.”
The Borders of Infinity (1987)
How could you tell the difference between not liking sex, and not liking the only person you’d ever done sex with?
Yet she was almost desperate for touch, mere affection untainted by the indignities of the erotic.
Komarr (1998)
I admit, when I picture the scenario, I keep seeing a boy of about, oh, seven. Age of reason and all that. One I could talk to, and do things with. I’m not sure how you get from the single-cell stage to that one, though.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016)
Des, it seemed, was much less terrified by this return to Cedonia than he was. Of course, a demon could not be killed exactly. Are you saying I would be a surprise?
Oh, Pen. You have been a surprise from the beginning.
The Prisoner of Limnos (2017)
Boleso’s men, Ingrey was reminded, were out of the habit of questioning the sense of their superiors’ orders. Or perhaps it was that any who dared were got rid of, one way or another, and these were the remainder. Residue. Scum.
The Hallowed Hunt (2005)
There’s a paradox for you. Although really it’s no more than saying that I’m satisfied with my life. Changing anything would wish people I’ve loved out of existence, and yet…there would have been other people, I suppose. Who now will never be.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016)
"And the Bastard grant us . . . in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding."
Paladin of Souls (2003)
He lay a long time, cradled in pain. He was not sure how long. The illumination from the force dome was even and shadowless, unchanging. Timeless, like eternity. Hell was eternal, was it not? This place had too damn many congruencies with hell, that was certain.
The Borders of Infinity (1987)
“Ah, yes. I recall from your file that you are some sort of theist.” said the Emperor. “I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.”
“Yes, I have often felt the pull of it myself.”
Shards of Honor (1986)
It’s a moribund body anyway, afflicted with the narrowest conservatism and stuffed with old relics only concerned with protecting their privileges. I’m not sure anything can be done with the Counts in the long run. Perhaps they should finally be allowed to dodder over the brink of extinction.
Shards of Honor (1986)
One’s career might depend solely on one’s own efforts, but marriage was a lottery, and you drew your lot in late adolescence or early adulthood at a point of maximum idiocy and confusion. Perhaps it was just as well. If people were too sensible, the human race might well come to an end. Evolution favored the maximum production of children, not of happiness.
Komarr (1998)
Be passionate, be picky, have enough self-criticism to demand of yourself your best and not sort of let it slide by. And remember that the greatest defect any piece of fiction can have is not to be finished.
A Girl's World interview (2006)
“Suffering bastard.”
“I thought you saw meaning in that sort of thing,” said Vorkosigan.
“In the abstract. Most days it’s just stumbling around in the dark with the rest of creation, smashing into things and wondering why it hurts.”
Shards of Honor (1986)
“‘Most men,’” he quoted, “‘are of naught more use in their lives but as machines for turning food into shit.’”
Ivan cocked an eyebrow at him. “Who said that? Your grandfather?”
“Leonardo da Vinci,” Miles returned primly. But was compelled to add, “Grandfather quoted it to me, though.”
Memory (1996)
“Do me the honor of grasping that I may just possibly know what I’m doing!” I wish to hell I knew what I was doing. Intuition was nothing but the subconscious processing of subliminal clues, he was fairly sure, but I feel it in my bones made too uncomfortably thin a public defense for his actions.
Cetaganda (1996)
“I thought he was a bit creepy.”
Kareen stiffened. If you’d been cloned a slave, raised by terrorists to be a murderer, trained by methods tantamount to physical and psychological torture, and had to kill people to escape, you’d likely seem a little creepy too. If you weren’t a twitching puddle.
A Civil Campaign (1999)
People have some very odd illusions about power. Mostly it consists of finding a parade and nipping over to place yourself at the head of the band. Just as eloquence consists of persuading people of things they desperately want to believe. Demagoguery, I suppose, is eloquence sliding to some least moral energy level.
Komarr (1998)
Ethan had never found himself clinging to a cusp of human history. The trouble with the position, he found, was that in whatever direction you looked there fell away a glassy, uncontrollable slide down to a strange future you would then have to live in. He had never wanted to pray more, nor been less sure that it would do any good.
Ethan of Athos (1986)
The fundamental principle was clear: the spirit was to be preferred over the letter, truth over technicalities. Precedent was held subordinate to the judgment of the man on the spot. Alas, the man on the spot was himself. There was no refuge for him in automated rules, no hiding behind the law says as if the law were some living overlord with a real Voice. The only voice here was his own.
The Mountains of Mourning (1989)
Mark had a Thing about Miles. Thing was not accepted psychoscientific terminology, she’d been informed by his twinkling therapist, but there was scarcely another term with the scope and flexibility to take in the whole complexity of the…Thing.
A Civil Campaign (1999)