American speculative fiction writer (1949- )
There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
A Civil Campaign
You write what you know because -- like there's another choice? The trick is to try and know as much as possible.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
interview, A Girl's World, 2006
Sometimes, insanity is not a tragedy. Sometimes, it's a strategy for survival. Sometimes ... it's a triumph.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Mirror Dance
Roots grow deep in the dark.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
A Civil Campaign
Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Memory
I had a teacher who used to reflect back my questions that way. I thought it was the Socratic method, and it impressed me immensely, until I found out he used it whenever he didn't know the answer.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Shards of Honor
To kill a man, it helps if you can first take away his face.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
The Warrior's Apprentice
You can tell you're alive when somebody touches you back.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Mirror Dance
Being beaten by your student was the ultimate victory, for a teacher.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Mirror Dance
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Passage
The key of strategy ... is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
The Vor Game
Old age ... is slower than a grenade, but a lot more thorough.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Cryoburn
The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Diplomatic Immunity
Biology is Destiny.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
The Borders of Infinity
An honor is not diminished for being shared.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Shards of Honor
Don't underestimate the viciousness of academics when funding is at stake.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Cryoburn
Shooting people to keep them from dying had logical flaws obvious to everyone.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
The Flowers of Vashnoi
If suspicion was the deadliest possible insult, then trust was always right, even if it was mistaken.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Komarr
A person's things can be a kind of exterior morphology of their mind.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Shards of Honor
The limits of trust depend much on whether you mean to do business more than once.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance