Lois McMaster Quotes
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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.
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There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.
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If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way.
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When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.
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I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back.
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I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better when you can get it.
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Good 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.
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A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter.
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Growing up, I have discovered over time, is rather like housework: never finished.
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The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
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Utterly bleak and black is not the sum of realism. All the other colors are real, too.
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The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.
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History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.
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When I go down into the ground at last, as God is my judge, I pray my best-beloved may have better to say of me than, "He didn't hit me."
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Second sight is redundant to reason anyway.
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Colonel Otto, do you have a, perhaps, fuller and more detailed account than your preliminary one of why my Imperial Security building is now largely an underground installation? From a technical perspective.
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Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.
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I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.
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Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't Panic." "I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining .
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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?
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Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.
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A 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.
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Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant.
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Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it.