Lois McMaster Bujold

History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.

The Imperial Service could win a war without coffee, but would prefer not to have to.

Change is possible.'

'Change is inevitable.

So the difference between a criminal and a hero is the <i>order</i> in which their vile crimes are committed. And justice comes with a sell-by date. In that case, you’d better hurry. You wouldn't want your heroism to spoil.

Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.

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.

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

. . . people do get hypnotized by the hard choices. And stop looking for alternatives.

"Miles exhaled carefully, faint with rage and reminded grief. He does not know, he told himself. He cannot know... "Ivan, one of these days somebody is going to pull out a weapon and plug you, and you're going to die in bewilderment, crying, "What did I say? What did I say?"

"What did I say?" asked Ivan indignantly.

Perfect preservation isn't life, it’s death.

Once you had delegated the best people to do a job for you, you had to trust both them and your judgment.

Miles added it to his life's lessons list. Call it Rule 27B. Never make key tactical decisions while having electro-convulsive seizures.

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.

You're worse than evil. You're <i>inefficient</i>.

I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.