Lois McMaster Quotes
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He's not too short. He's just... concentrated.
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Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I'd always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at ease before his own hearth.
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Never do yourself, what you can con professionals into doing for you.
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The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.
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The real unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, without anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present - they are real.
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Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.
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The world is made by the people who show up for the job.
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They stared at her curiously, and she caught snatches of conversation in two or three languages. It wasn't hard to guess their content, and she smiled a bit primly. Youth, it appeared, was full of illusions as to how much sexual energy two people might have to spare while hiking forty or so kilometers a day, concussed, stunned, diseased, on poor food and little sleep, alternating caring for a wounded man with avoiding becoming dinner for every carnivore within range - and with a coup to plan for the end.
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Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.
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Miles is... Miles; close to a force of nature, climbing up out of his own pages and escaping subordination to any opinion of mine.
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I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is the higher achievement.
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Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins.
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Mia Maz glanced aside in concern at his muffled snort. "Are you all right?" "Yes. Sorry," he whispered. "I'm just having an attack of limericks." Her eyes widened, and she bit her lip; only her deepening dimple betrayed her. "Shhh," she said, with feeling.
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I spent my 20s working in patient care at a large university hospital, an experience that has informed all my work and has given me a lot of human observation to draw on.
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I've always tried to write the kind of book I most loved to read: character-centered adventure.
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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.
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Some 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.
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I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.
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A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that.
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One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. "He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine. "Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous." Vordarian choked, sputtering.
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Like integrity, love of life was not a subject to be studied, it was a contagion to be caught. And you had to catch it from someone who had it.
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Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving.
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There is a sad disconnectedness that overcomes a library when its owner is gone.
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My home is not a place, it is people.