Top 300 Lois McMaster Bujold Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Seems like half my anxiety dreams are about airports.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

252. “Right.” Roic nodded. He glanced over Miles’s growing array of medical attachments. “By the way, m’lord. Had you happened to mention your seizure disorder to the surgeon yet?”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

253. “Gardens were meant to be seen, smelled, walked through, grubbed in. A hundred objective measurements didn’t sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

254. “The Emperor’s Birthday is the traditional end of the fiscal year, for each count’s district in relation to the Imperial government. In other words, it’s tax day, except – the Vor are not taxed. That would imply too subordinate a relationship to the Imperium. Instead, we give the Emperor a present.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

255. “I expect you’ll be wading for the rest of your life,” Illyan answered seriously. “But every Komarran who follows you will have less crap to deal with, because of you.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

256. “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 ease – that would be to give up all hope of honor. The last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

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

— Lois McMaster Bujold

258. “I began my writing career in a very isolated place and time.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

259. “Are you glad, or sorry?” “About children?” She glanced at his face. He seemed to have no awareness of having hit a sore point dead on. “They just haven’t come my way, I guess.” The.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

260. “And then his world turned into a pelting rain of flaming snot.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

261. “One gives you the shirt off his back, mused Des, and the other offers to help you bury bodies. I do believe you have made some new friends, Pen!”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

262. “When your young life offered its first disaster, naturally it loomed large. After you’d survived dozens, you basically just told the next one to take a number and get in line.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

263. “Hm,” said the Count, rubbing his lips and regarding Miles with cool approval. “Interesting. Well. For your fourth consoling thought, I would point out that in this venue” – a wave of his finger took in Vorbarr Sultana, and by extension Barrayar – “acquiring a reputation as a slick and dangerous man, who would kill without compunction to obtain and protect his own, is not all bad. In fact, you might even find it useful.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

264. “I have had another thought on such fates that denies neither gods nor man. Perhaps, instead of controlling every step, the gods have started a hundred or a thousand Cazarils and Umegats down this road, and only those arrive who choose to.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

265. “Guards, Miles now realized, had to stay in prison all day long too. Indeed, as a guard, one of his jobs was now to keep himself in.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

266. “Are we not all called on to yield our children back to the world, in the end?”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

267. “Desperately, Cordelia stuck her foot through the whatchamacallit foot-holder, stirrup, grabbed, and heaved. The saddle slid slowly around the horse’s belly, and Cordelia with it, till she was clinging underneath among a forest of horse legs. She fell to the ground with a thump and scrambled out of the way. The horse twisted its neck around and peered at her, in a dismay much milder than her own, then stuck its rubbery lips to the ground and began nibbling up weeds.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

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

— Lois McMaster Bujold

269. “Egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

270. “It’s so obviously bogus, no one will look for a second layer of, er, bogusity.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

271. “I can tell you truths. I cannot give you understanding. For.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

272. “A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He – or she – freely gives the gift of their will to their god. And in renouncing action, makes action possible.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

273. “A true Vor, Miles told himself severely, does not bury his face in his liegewoman’s breasts and cry – even if he is at a convenient height for it.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

274. “The shuttle bumped, bounced, banged, rocked, and roared out over the flat, cracked surface. She was sorry she had never made a pass at Leo. Clearly, you could die while waiting for other people to start your life for you. Her seat harness cut across her breasts as deceleration sucked her forward and the rumbling vibration rattled her teeth.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

275. “I was so afraid for you, I forgot to be afraid for your enemies. I should have remembered. Dear Captain.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

276. “Her lips curved up despite themselves at the memory of Oliver in the crystal canoe, gazing as entranced as a boy at his newly discovered underwater Sergyar.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

277. “You will,” said Vorkosigan wearily, “sit in that fortified palace that half the engineers are going to be tied up constructing, and party in it, and let your men do your dying for you, until you’ve bought your ground by the sheer weight of the corpses piled on it, because that’s the kind of soldiering your mentor has taught you. And then send bulletins home about your great victory. Maybe you can have the casualty lists declared top secret.” “Aral, careful,” warned Vorhalas, shocked.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

278. “He smiled, recapturing her hand. “A very wise woman once told me – you just go on. I’ve never encountered any good advice that didn’t boil down to that, in the end. Not even my father’s.” I want to be with you always, so you can make me laugh myself well.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

279. “Admiral Naismith,” said Quinn stiffly, “is not a dwarf. He’s nearly five feet tall. And I am not ‘in love’ with him, you low-minded twit; I merely admire his brilliance. Professionally.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

280. “I seem to have accidentally got married, but it’s only temporary.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

281. “Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

282. “Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

283. “I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

284. “My Lord, we wish to resign.” Her smile, confusingly, crept wider, as if she just said something delightful.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

285. “The world is ashes and the gods are a horror. Tell me, Learned, what other place is there for me to go?”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

286. “Heroes. They sprang up around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

287. “Oh, what did she finally decide on?” asked the pilot. “At one point she told me she was thinking of sending the bride a barbed-wire choke chain for Miles, but was afraid it might be misinterpreted.” “No.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

288. “You have more years ahead of you now than Pejar, half your age, whom we buried outside these walls these two days past. Stand before his grave and use your gift of breath to complain of your limited time. If you dare.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

289. “Surrounded by them all, she was reminded of the old parental curse – May you have six children just like you. Except that this curse seemed to have gone awry. Miles would have reveled at six children just like himself; he’d have known exactly what to do. Instead, he seemed to have received six children, none in the least like himself, and furthermore, each one different from all the others. As parental revenges went, this was actually much better.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

290. “Well, who wants to die in bed?” “You did, you always said. Of extreme old age, in bed, with somebody’s wife.” “Mine, by preference,” Cazaril.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

291. “But why, in God the Father’s name, should they want to destroy Athos? Is Cetaganda – controlled by women or something?” A.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

292. “When the man arises who can make you laugh, solemn Ista, angry Ista, iron Ista, then will your heart be healed. You have not prayed for this: it’s a guerdon even the gods cannot give you. We are limited to such simples as redemption from your sins.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

293. “Although upon reflection, Jole wasn’t sure of the advisability of introducing a keen young officer to Vorkosigan notions of initiative. Metaphors about fighting fire with gasoline rose to his mind.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

294. “And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth?”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

295. “So, how long has my mother had this questionable fetish for bisexual Barrayaran admirals? I don’t think even the Betans have earrings for that one.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

296. “Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

297. “Indeed. On average, one-half of all supplicants to come before a judge’s bench must depart angry and disappointed. But not, by that, necessarily wronged.“.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

298. “Miles swallowed icy spit. Those who do not know their history, his thought careened, are doomed to keep stepping in it. Alas, so were those who did, it seemed.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

299. “Mark’s ideas tended to the bland, and there was no point in asking Miles, whose embittered suggestions all ran to things like Vomit Vanilla and Cockroach Crunch.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

300. “If he ever does do himself in, I’m betting it’ll be something that involves large explosions. And lots of innocent bystanders, probably.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold