Thursday, October 13, 2011

Lois McMaster Bujold

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The Literature Page I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days. Lois McMaster Bujold Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. Lois McMaster Bujold, "A Civil Campaign", 1999 Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. Lois McMaster Bujold, "A Civil Campaign", 1999 Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain? Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991 Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991Good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they'll be called on to do before the next chance. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991My home is not a place, it is people. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991 Our children change us... whether they live or not. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991 Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Borders of Infinity", 1989The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Brothers in Arms"His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old? Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996I am who I choose to be. I always have been what I chose?though not always what I pleased. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996If you can't do what you want, do what you can. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996 You try to give away what you want yourself. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Memory", 1996 I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is?the higher achievement. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Mirror Dance", 1994 It's important that someone celebrate our existence... People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Mirror Dance", 1994An honor is not diminished for being shared. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Shards of Honor", 1986 Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Shards of Honor", 1986 A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. Lois McMaster Bujold, "The Vor Game", 1990War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with. Lois McMaster Bujold, "The Vor Game", 1990 If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door. Lois McMaster Bujold, "The Warrior's Apprentice", 1986A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something. Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack. Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard. Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999
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