Vorkosigan Quotes

Cordelia's stomach tightened. "Radnov and Darobey, by chance?" Stuben stared. "How did you know?" "Go on, just go on." "They were the ringleaders of a conspiracy to unseat that homicidal maniac Vorkosigan. Vorkosigan was after them, so they were glad to see us." "I'll bet. Just like manna from heaven." "A Barrayaran patrol shuttled down after them. We set up an ambush - stunned them all, except for one Radnov shot with a nerve disruptor. Those guys really play for keeps. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Are you sure this isn't instant boots? asked Cordelia sadly, for in color, taste, and smell they closely resembled pulverized shoe leather pressed into wafers. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't Panic."
"I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining . ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

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

This is important! But you have to stay absolutely cool. I may be completely off-base, and panicking prematurely."
"I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

All true wealth is biological (Aral Vorkosigan) ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Oh, was that liquor of yours a stimulant?" asked Elena. "I wondered why he didn't fall asleep."
"Couldn't you tell?" chuckled Mayhew.
"Not really."
Miles twisted his head to take in Elena's upside-down worried face, and smile in weak reassurance. Sparkly black and purple whirlpools clouded his vision. Mayhew's laughter faded. "My God," he said hollowly, "you mean he's like that all the time? ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

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

There will be grace and forgiveness enough, old dog, even for you. I pray you will spare me a drink from that cup, when it overflows for you.
- Miles Vorkosigan ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Do you remember," Ivan sighed, "that time in the back garden at Vorkosigan House, when you'd been reading all those military histories about the Cetagandan prison camps during the invasion, and you decided we had to dig an escape tunnel? Except it was you who did all the designing, and me and Elena who did all the digging? ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

For lunch, Tsipis led them to Hassadar's most exclusive locale - the official dining room of the Count's Residence, overlooking the Square. The remarkable spread which the staff laid on hinted that Miles had sent down a few urgent behind-the-scenes instructions for the care and feeding of his . . . gardener. Mark confirmed this after dessert when Kareen led Enrique and the widow off to see the garden and fountain in the Residence's inner courtyard, and he and Tsipis lingered over the exquisite vintage of Vorkosigan estate-bottled wine usually reserved for visits from Emperor Gregor. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

He bit his fingernails. He bit his toenails. He pulled tiny green threads from his shirt and tried flossing his teeth. Then he tried making little green designs with tiny, tiny knots. Then he hit on the idea of weaving messages. Could he macramé "Help, I am a prisoner . . ." and plant it on the back of someone's jacket by static charge? If someone ever came back, that is? He got as far as a delicate gossamer H, E, L, caught the thread on a hangnail while rubbing his stubbled chin, and reduced his plea to an illegible green wad. He pulled another thread and started over. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Cordelia – "Why so rough?"
Aral – "It's very poor. It was the town center during the time Isolation. And it hasn't been touched by renovation, minimal water, no electricity choked with refuse."
"Mostly human," added Peoter tartly.
"Poor?" Asked Cordelia bewildered. "No electricity? How can it be on the comm network?"
"It's not of course," answered Vorkosigan.
"Then how can anyone get their schooling?" Cordelia
"They don't."
Cordelia stared. "I don't understand, how do they get their jobs?"
"A few escape to the service, the rest prey on each other mostly." Vorkosigan regarded her face uneasily. "Have you no poverty on Beta colony?"
"Poverty? Well some people have more money than others, but no comm consuls…?"
Vorkosigan was diverted from his interrogation. "Is not owning a comm consul the lowest standard of living you can imagine?" He said in wonder.
"It's the first article in the constitution! 'Access to information shall not be abridged.'"
"Cordelia, these people barely have access to food, clothing and shelter. They have a few rags and cooking pots and squat in buildings that aren't economical to repair or tear down yet with the wind whistling through the walls."
"No air conditioning?"
"No heat in the winter is a bigger problem here."
"I suppose so. You people don't really have summer. How do they call for help when they are sick or hurt?"
"What help?" Vorkosigan was growing grim. "If they're s ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

One step at a time," Vorkosigan returned grimly, "I can walk around the world. Watch me. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Sorry, Bill. I just have this awful vision of being p-peeled like an onion, looking for the seeds."
He grinned. "Onions don't have seeds, Cordelia."
"I stand corrected," she said dryly. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Other than that, how was Kyril Island, Ensign Vorkosigan?" inquired the Count. "You didn't vid home much, your mother noticed." "I was busy. Lessee. The climate was ferocious, the terrain was lethal, a third of the population including my immediate superior was dead drunk most of the time. The average IQ equaled the mean temperature in degrees cee, there wasn't a woman for five hundred kilometers in any direction, and the base commander was a homicidal psychotic. Other than that, it was lovely. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Save me from the virtuous. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right - and then apologizing. Inconsistent, Father.He shuffled back and forth across the room again, and his pain burst into speech. He flung his words against the deaf door, "I'll make you take back that apology! I am all right, damn it! I'll make you see it. I'll stuff you so full of pride in me there'll be no room left for your precious guilt! I swear by my word as Vorkosigan. I swear it, Father," his voice fell to a whisper, "Grandfather. Somehow, I don't know how . . . ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Or that they believed you would not be here to inflict the consequences," said Ekaterin. Had they meant Vorkosigan to die, too? Or . . . what? "Oh, nice. That's reassuring." He bit rather aggressively into the last of his sandwich. She rested her chin on her hand and regarded him with wry curiosity. "Does ImpSec know you babble like this? ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Vormurtos leaned on the frame with his arms crossed, and failed to move aside.

At Miles's polite, "Excuse us, please," Vormurtos pursed his lips in exaggerated irony.

"Why not? Everyone else has. It seems if you are Vorkosigan enough, you can even get away with murder."

Ekaterin stiffened unhappily. Miles hesitated a fractional moment, considering responses: explanation, outrage, protest? Argument in a hallway with a half-potted fool? No. I am Aral Vorkosigan's son, after all. Instead, he stared up unblinkingly, and breathed, "So if you truly believe that, why are you standing in my way?"

Vormurtos's inebriated sneer drained away, to be replaced by a belated wariness. With an effort at insouciance that he did not quite bring off, he unfolded himself, and opened his hand to wave the couple past. When Miles bared his teeth in an edged smile, he backed up an extra and involuntary step. Miles shifted Ekaterin to his other side and strode past without looking back.

Ekaterin glanced over her shoulder once, as they made their way down the corridor. In a tone of dispassionate observation, she murmured, "He's melted. You know, your sense of humor is going to get you into deep trouble someday."

"Belike," Miles sighed. ~ 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

It was a curious insight into Vorkosigan that he should so automatically accept her bare word as binding; he evidently thought along the same lines himself. The ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

If you can't do what you want, do what you can. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Galeni made her smile but not laugh. The lack of any sense of play between them worried Miles; you had to have a keen sense of humor to do sex and stay sane. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

His master plan to get them all out the door early met its first check of the day when he opened his closet door to discover that Zap the Cat, having penetrated the security of Vorkosigan House through Miles's quisling cook, had made a nest on the floor among his boots and fallen clothing to have kittens. Six of them.
Zap ignored his threats about the dire consequences of attacking an Imperial Auditor, and purred and growled from the dimness in her usual schizophrenic fashion. Miles gathered his nerve and rescued his best boots and House uniform, at a cost of some high Vor blood, and sent them downstairs for a hasty cleaning by the overworked Armsman Pym. The Countess, delighted as ever to find her biological empire increasing, came in thoughtfully bearing a cat-gourmet tray prepared by Ma Kosti that Miles would have had no hesitation in eating for his own breakfast. In the general chaos of the morning, however, he had to go down to the kitchen and scrounge his meal. The Countess sat on the floor and cooed into his closet for a good half-hour, and not only escaped laceration, but managed to pick up, sex, and name the whole batch of little squirming furballs before tearing herself away to hurry and dress. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold