Lois McMaster Bujold - Live Quotes

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Reading is an active and elusive experience. Every reader, reading exactly the same text, will have a slightly different reading experience depending on what s/he projects into the words s/he sees, what strings of meaning and association those words call up in his/her (always) private mind. One can never therefore, talk about the quality of a book separately from the quality of the mind that is creating it by reading it, in the only place books live, in the secret mind.

Lois McMaster Bujold
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.

Lois McMaster Bujold
You must kill if you expect to survive."
"No you don't," Miles put in. "Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.

Lois McMaster Bujold
"I would be considerably more impressed with your god, dy Cabon," said Ista through her teeth, "if He could have arranged one life's worth of simple protection in advance, rather than three hundred lives' worth of gaudy vengeance afterward."

Lois McMaster Bujold
"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."

Lois McMaster Bujold
The best strategies run on rails. Live or die, you make your goal.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go: have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier," but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the hatred and envy they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and re-arranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live.

Lois McMaster Bujold
The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools. The survivors were those who learned to fight dirty, and live, and fight another day, and win, and win, and win, and for whom nothing, not comfort, or security, not family or friends or their immortal souls, was more important than winning. Dead men are losers by definition. Survival and victory. They weren't supermen, or immune to pain. They sweated in confusion and darkness. And … they won.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Mark's own taste in women, if ever he should live to exercise it, ran more to something like that little blonde clone... Somebody short, soft, pink, timid, somebody who wouldn't kill and eat him after they mated.

Lois McMaster Bujold