Lois McMaster Quotes
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Real destiny takes everything-the last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sure-and gives it back doubled. Quadrupled. A thousand-fold! But you can't give halves. You have to give it all. I know. I swear. I've come back from the dead to speak the truth to you. Real destiny gives you a mountain of life, and puts you on top of it.
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Too late, he recalled Miles's dictum that the reward for a job well done was usually a harder job.
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Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.
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People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damned rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf.
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All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, a scientist, an artist, or an entrepreneur. In service of their goals, they lay down time, energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self.
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Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved.
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A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.
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What you are is a question only you can answer.
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There was no limit to what one man might do, if he gave all, and held back nothing.
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A price is something you get. A cost is something you lose.
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No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not when the enemy is me.
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Our children change us... whether they live or not.
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Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.
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If there's no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept?
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Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.
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Have you ever heard the phrase, Living well is the best revenge?" "Where I come from, someone's head in a bag is generally considered the best revenge
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If you ever have to make a choice between learning and inspiration, choose learning. It works most of the time.
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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.
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It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be.
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Aim high. You may still miss the target, but at least you won't shoot your foot off.
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Surely only correct understanding could lead to correct action.
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Koudelka looked back, "You?! I know you! You trust beyond reason!" Cordelia met his eyes steadily, "Yes, it's how I get results beyond hope, as you may recall.
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If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?
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Don't wish to be normal. Wish to be yourself. To the hilt. Find out what you're best at, and develop it, and hopscotch your weaknesses. Wish to be great at whatever you are.