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Adulthood Isn't An Award They'll Give You For Being A Good Child. You Can Waste Years, Trying To Get Someone To Give That Respect To You, As Though It Were A Sort Of Promotion Or Raise In Pay. If Only You Do Enough, If Only You Are Good Enough. No. You Have To Just Take It. Give It To Yourself, I Suppose. Say, I'm Sorry You Feel Like That And Walk Away. But That's Hard

-Lois McMaster Bujold

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Adulthood Isn't An Award

Lois McMaster Bujold

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Adulthood Isn't An Award They'll Give You For Being A Good Child. You Can Waste Years, Trying To Get Someone To Give That Respect To You, As Though It Were A Sort Of Promotion Or Raise In Pay. If Only You Do Enough, If Only You Are Good Enough. No. You Have To Just Take It. Give It To Yourself, I Suppose. Say, I'm Sorry You Feel Like That And Walk Away. But That's Hard

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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.

[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.

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.

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.

Not That I Haven't Leaped Up Into The Blinding Light Of Competence Now And Then. It's Sustaining The Altitude That Defeats Me.

The World Is Made By The People Who Show Up For The Job.

Escapist Literature Gets A Bad Rap. But I Think Escape Is Important For A Lot Of People In A Lot Of Places.

It Was Never What I Wanted To Buy That Held My Heart's Hope. It Was What I Wanted To Be.

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.

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.

I Do Think, Half Of What We Call Madness Is Just Some Poor Slob Dealing With Pain By A Strategy That Annoys The People Around Him.

The Dead Cannot Cry Out For Justice. It Is A Duty Of The Living To Do So For Them.

You Try To Give Away What You Want Yourself.

It’s Important That Someone Celebrate Our Existence," She Objected Amiably. "people Are The Only Mirror We Have To See Ourselves In. The Domain Of All Meaning. All Virtue, All Evil, Are Contained Only In People. There Is None In The Universe At Large. Solitary Confinement Is A Punishment In Every Human Culture.

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.

No Battle Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy. Not When The Enemy Is Me.

Endure Pain, Find Joy, And Make Your Own Meaning, Because The Universe Certainly Isn't Going To Supply It.

If You're Trying To Take A Roomful Of People By Surprise, It's A Lot Easier To Hit Your Targets If You Don't Yell Going Through The Door.

If You Can't Do What You Want, Do What You Can.

Invisible Monsters

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.

What You Are Is A Question Only You Can Answer.

If You Make It Plain You Like People, It's Hard For Them To Resist Liking You Back.

Since No One Is Perfect, It Follows That All Great Deeds Have Been Accomplished Out Of Imperfection. Yet They Were Accomplished, Somehow, All The Same.

I Don't Confuse Greatness With Perfection. To Be Great Anyhow Is The Higher Achievement.

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.

From Fried Witchetty Grubs To Gold-plated Turnips, When You're A Writer You Never Know What's Going To Appear On Your Plate Next. It Keeps A Woman Alert, It Does.

You Couldn't Be That Good And Not Know It, Somewhere In Your Secret Heart, However Much You'd Been Abused Into Affecting Public Humility.

Your Reverence, I Do Not Hate Any Man In This World Enough To Inflict The Results Of My Prayers Upon Him.

If Power Was An Illusion, Wasn't Weakness Necessarily One Also?

History Does Not So Much Repeat As Echo, I Suppose.

The Gods Give No Gifts Without Hooks Embedded.

My Home Is Not A Place, It Is People.

If You Want To Catch Something, Running After It Isn't Always The Best Way.

I Wanted To Give You A Victory. But By Their Essential Nature Triumphs Can’t Be Given.

Do It For Yourself. The Universe Will Be Around To Collect Its Cut Later.

How Could You Be A Great Man If History Brought You No Great Events, Or Brought You To Them At The Wrong Time, Too Young, Too Old?

I Am Increasingly Convinced That Technological Culture Is The Entire Root Of Women's Liberation.

In Mysticism, Knowledge Cannot Be Separated From A Certain Way Of Life Which Becomes Its Living Manifestation. To Acquire Mystical Knowledge Means To Undergo A Transformation; One Could Even Say That The Knowledge Is The Transformation. Scientific Knowledge, On The Other Hand, Can Often Stay Abstract And Theoretical. Thus Most Of Today’s Physicists Do Not Seem To Realize The Philosophical, Cultural And Spiritual Implications Of Their Theories.

All The Geniuses I Ever Met Were So Just Part Of The Time. To Qualify, You Only Have To Be Great Once, You Know. Once When It Matters.

Ignorance Is Not Stupidity, But It Might As Well Be. And I Do Not Like Feeling Stupid.

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.

Whether You Function As Welders Or Inspectors, The Laws Of Physics Are Implacable Lie-detectors. You May Fool Men. You Will Never Fool The Metal.

Events May Be Horrible Or Inescapable. Men Have Always A Choice - If Not Whether, Then How, They May Endure.

Miles Added It To His Life's Lessons List. Call It Rule 27b. Never Make Key Tactical Decisions While Having Electro-convulsive Seizures.

Too Late, He Recalled Miles's Dictum That The Reward For A Job Well Done Was Usually A Harder Job.

I'd Storm Heaven For You, If I Knew Where It Was.

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.

And This Was Your Friend?" Cordelia Raised Her Eyebrows. "seems To Me The Only Difference Between Your Friends And Your Enemies Is How Long The Stand Around Chatting Before They Shoot You.

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.

Think Of The Glory. Think Of Your Reputation. Think How Great It'll Look On Your Next Resume." On My Cenotaph, You Mean. Nobody Will Be Able To Collect Enough Of My Scattered Atoms To Bury. You Going To Cover My Funeral Expenses, Son?" Splendidly. Banners, Dancing Girls, And Enough Beer To Float Your Coffin To Valhalla." - Miles Coaxing Ky Tung To Agree To An Almost Suicidal Mission

Only The Saints Would Joke So About The Gods, Because It Was Either Joke Or Scream, And They Alone Knew It Was All The Same To The Gods.

Honesty Is The Only Way With Anyone, When You'll Be So Close As To Be Living Inside Each Other's Skins.

Guard Your Honor. Let Your Reputation Fall Where It Will. And Outlive The Bastards.

You Don't Pay Back Your Parents. You Can't. The Debt You Owe Them Gets Collected By Your Children, Who Hand It Down In Turn. It's A Sort Of Entailment. Or If You Don't Have Children Of The Body, It's Left As A Debt To Your Common Humanity. Or To Your God, If You Possess Or Are Possessed By One. The Family Economy Evades Calculation In The Gross Planetary Product. It's The Only Deal I Know Where, When You Give More Than You Get, You Aren't Bankrupted - But Rather, Vastly Enriched.

Common Humanity

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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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An Honor Is Not Diminished For Being Shared.

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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."

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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Our Children Change Us... Whether They Live Or Not.

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When You Give Each Other Everything, It Becomes An Even Trade. Each Wins All.

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When You Choose An Action, You Choose The Consequences Of That Action.

There Was No Limit To What One Man Might Do, If He Gave All, And Held Back Nothing.

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The Principle Difference Between Heaven And Hell Is The Company You Keep There.

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When You Can’t Do Something Truly Useful, You Tend To Vent The Pent Up Energy In Something Useless But Available, Like Snappy Dressing.

Growing Up, I Have Discovered Over Time, Is Rather Like Housework: Never Finished.

I Am Not A Fate Worse Than Death, Dammit!

A Good Friend Of My Son's Is A Son To Me.

Lost Friendship

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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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On The Sixth Day God Saw He Couldn't Do It All, So He Created Engineers

The Good Face Pain. But The Great? They Embrace It.

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You Can Say A Lot In A Little Time, If You Stick To Words Of One Syllable.

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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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If The Truth Doesn't Save Us, What Does That Say About Us?

Second Sight Is Redundant To Reason Anyway.

One Foot In Front Of The Other, Wasn't That The Grownup Way Of Solving Problems? Surely He Ought To Be A Grownup At His Age.

I Miss It Every Minute, And I Have No Wish At All To Go Back.

The World Demands I Make Good Choices On No Information, And Then Blames My Maidenhood For My Mistakes, As If My Maidenhood Were Responsible For My Ignorance. Ignorance Is Not Stupidity, But It Might As Well Be. And I Do Not Like Feeling Stupid.

Anything Worth Achieving Is Worth Overachieving.

"it Was Suicide, Wasn't It?" "in An Involuntary Sort Of Way," Said Vorob'yev. "these Cetagandan Political Suicides Can Get Awfully Messy, When The Principal Won't Cooperate." "thirty-two Stab Wounds In The Back, Worst Case Of Suicide They Ever Saw?" Murmured Ivan, Clearly Fascinated By The Gossip. "exactly, My Lord."

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I Think 99 Percent Of Women's Lib Comes From Technology Making Different Kinds Of Lives Possible, And Then The Social Adjustment Follows The Technology - It Doesn't Precede It.

Hi, I'm A Hero, But I Can't Tell You Why. It's Classified.

His Outflung Hands Traced Over The Threads Of His Rug, Passed Loop By Loop Through Some Patient Woman's Hands. Or Maybe She Hadn't Been Patient. Maybe She'd Been Tired, Or Irritated, Or Distracted, Or Hungry, Or Angry. Maybe She Had Been Dying. But Her Hands Had Kept Moving, All The Same.

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.

Change Is Possible.' 'change Is Inevitable.

Possible Change

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You Have To Be Careful Who You Let Define Your Good.

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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Surely Only Correct Understanding Could Lead To Correct Action.

A Price Is Something You Get. A Cost Is Something You Lose.

Women Do Desperately Need Models For Power Other Than The Maternal.

A Hundred Objective Measurements Didn't Sum The Worth Of A Garden; Only The Delight Of Its Users Did That.

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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 .

One Learns Better Than To Hand One's Choices To Fear. With Age, With Every Wound And Scar, One Learns.

Wounds And Scars

I'm Very Interested In The Impact Of Biotechnology On The Way People Live.

Read, Or You Will Be Missing Something Extraordinary.

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Well, What Is A Blessing But A Curse From Another Point Of View?

The Imperial Service Could Win A War Without Coffee, But Would Prefer Not To Have To.

Adversity Does Teach Who Your Real Friends Are.

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I've Got Forward Momentum. There's No Virtue In It. It's Just A Balancing Act. I Don't Dare Stop.

Experience Suggests It Doesn't Matter So Much How You Got Here, As What You Do After You Arrive.

I Don't Want Power. I Just Object To Idiots Having Power Over Me.

When The Souls Rise Up In Glory, Yours Shall Not Be Shunned Nor Sunderered, But Shall Be The Prize Of The Gods' Gardens. Even Your Darkness Shall Be Treasured Then, And All Your Pain Made Holy.

Reputation Is What Other People Know About You. Honor Is What You Know About Yourself.

As The Week Wore On, Ivan Contemplated The Merits Of Inertia As A Problem-solving Technique With Growing Favor

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?

But Have You Ever Overheard Two Women Discussing Men? Men Are Crude Liars, Comparing Their Drabs, But Women - I'd Rather Have [an] Anatomist Dissect Me Alive Than To Listen To The Things The Ladies Say About Us When They Think They Are Alone.

Miles Is... Miles; Close To A Force Of Nature, Climbing Up Out Of His Own Pages And Escaping Subordination To Any Opinion Of Mine.

I Need Words That Mean More Than They Mean, Words Not Just With Height And Width, But Depth And Weight And, And Other Dimensions That I Cannot Even Name.

I Am Not Schizoid. A Little Manic-depressive, Maybe." "'know Thyself.'" "we Try, Sir.

Children Might Or Might Not Be A Blessing, But To Create Them And Then Fail Them Was Surely Damnation.

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It's A Bizarre But Wonderful Feeling, To Arrive Dead Center Of A Target You Didn't Even Know You Were Aiming For.

Utterly Bleak And Black Is Not The Sum Of Realism. All The Other Colors Are Real, Too.

Honor Is What You Know About Yourself.

I Know Girls Who Pine For It. They Like To Play Dress-up And Pretend Being Vor Ladies Of Old, Rescued From Menace By Romantic Vor Youths. For Some Reason They Never Play 'dying In Childbirth', Or 'vomiting Your Guts Out From The Red Dysentery', Or 'weaving Till You Go Blind And Crippled From Arthritis And Dye Poisoning', Or 'infanticide'. Well, They Do Die Romantically Of Disease Sometimes, But Somehow It's Always An Illness That Makes You Interestingly Pale And Everyone Sorry And Doesn't Involve Losing Bowel Control.

All The Worry People Expend Over Not Existing After They Die, Yet Nary A One Ever Seems To Spare A Moment To Worry About Not Having Existed Before They Were Conceived. Or At All. After All, One Sperm Over And We Would Have Been Our Sisters, And We'd Never Have Been Missed.

A Weapon Is A Device For Making Your Enemy Change His Mind.

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.

Bleeding Ulcers Run In My Family, We Give Them To Each Other.

Cecil Flashed A Grin. "quite. Plus Your Rather Irritating Habit Of Treating Your Superior Officers As Your, Ah..." Cecil Paused, Apparently Groping Again For Just The Right Word. "equals?" Miles Hazarded. "cattle," Cecil Corrected Judiciously.

There Is A Sad Disconnectedness That Overcomes A Library When Its Owner Is Gone.

The Gods' Most Savage Curses Come Upon Us As Answers To Our Own Prayers. Prayer Is A Dangerous Business.

He's Not Too Short. He's Just... Concentrated.

You Should Have Fallen In Love With A Happy Man, If You Wanted Happiness. But No, You Had To Fall For The Breathtaking Beauty Of Pain.

Suicidal Glory Is The Luxury Of The Irresponsible.

I'm Not Getting It All Sorted, She Worried. I'm Not Getting It Right. You Are Brilliant, The Voice Reassured Her. It Is Imperfect. So Are All Things Trapped In Time. You Are Brilliant, Nonetheless. How Fortunate For Us That We Thirst For Glorious Souls Rather Than Faultless Ones, Or We Should Be Parched Indeed, And Most Lonely In Our Perfect Righteousness. Carry On Imperfectly, Shining Ista.

Any Communitys Arm Of Force - Military, Police, Security - Needs People In It Who Can Do Necessary Evil, And Yet Not Be Made Evil By It. To Do Only The Necessary And No More. To Constantly Question The Assumptions, To Stop The Slide Into Atrocity.

Power Is Better Than Revenge. Power Is A Live Thing, By Which You Reach Out To Grasp The Future. Revenge Is A Dead Thing, Reaching Out From The Past To Grasp You.

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.

One Of The Best Things About Writing Is How It Redeems, Not To Mention Recycles, All Of One's Prior Experiences, Including Or Perhaps Especially The Failures.

This Is The Most Important Thing I Will Ever Say To You. The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Testing Device. You Can Take All The Notes You Want On The Technical Data, Anything You Forget You Can Look Up Again, But This Must Be Engraved On Your Hearts In Letters Of Fire. There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, More Important To Me In The Men And Women I Train Than Their Absolute Personal Integrity. Whether You Function As Welders Or Inspectors, The Laws Of Physics Are Implacable Lie Detectors. You May Fool Men. You Will Never Fool Metal. That’s All.

If You Can't Be Seven Feet Tall, Be Seven Feet Smart.

One Step At A Time, I Can Walk Around The World. Watch Me.

I Have A Catch-phrase To Describe My Plot-generation Technique -- 'what's The Worst Possible Thing I Can Do To These People?'

Forward Momentum Only Worked As A Strategy If One Had Correctly Identified Which Way Was Forward.

I Am An Atheist, Myself. A Simple Faith, But A Great Comfort To Me, In These Last Days.

War Is Not Its Own End, Except In Some Catastrophic Slide Into Absolute Damnation. It's Peace That's Wanted. Some Better Peace Than The One You Started With.

For A While, I Thought I Was Going Mad. At Last, I Became Reconciled To My Despair. The Medications Helped, Too, I Thought, Sir.

When The Time Comes To Leap In Faith Whether You Have Your Eyes Open Or Closed Or Scream All The Way Down Or Not Makes No Practical Difference.

We Should Have Taken Our Chances Back Then, When We Were Young And Beautiful And Didn't Even Know It.

Never Underestimate The Human Capacity For Wishful Thinking And Willful Blindness,' Said Miles. Such As A Whole Society Of People Who Became So Wrapped Up In Avoiding Death, They Forgot To Be Alive?

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.

There Are Always Survivors At A Massacre. Among The Victors, If Nowhere Else.

I Take It As A Man's Duty To Restrain Himself.

Most People Go Through Their Whole Lives Without Killing Anybody. False Argument.

I Am Who I Choose To Be. I Have Always Been What I Chose, Though Not Always What I Pleased.

Never Argue With A Pedant Over Nomenclature. It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pedant.

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