"Galeni made her smile but not laugh. The lack of any sense of play between them worried Miles, you had to have a keen sense of humor to do sex and stay sane."

"Don't let fear swallow all your happiness. Don't forget to take joy.' Dag gulped. Both of their grounds were nearly closed. It was Arkady's voice alone that hinted how hard-bought this bit of wisdom might've been, yet the words had been nearly toneless."

"If there's no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept?"

"Lord X was a tyrant, not a revolutionary. He wanted to take over the system, not change it."

"Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. 'The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves."

"Growing up, I have discovered over time, is rather like housework: never finished."

"Anyway, if the Cetagandans really wanted to assassinate you, they'd hardly do it here. They'd slip something subtle under your skin that wouldn't go off for six months, and then would drop you mysteriously and untraceably in your tracks."

"Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible."

"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."

"Women shouldn't be in combat,' said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. 'Neither should men, in my opinion."

"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."

"I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back."

"Tej seemed such a sunny personality, much of the time-these flashes of dark were like a crack in the sky, shocking and wrong. Reminding him that the daylight was the illusion, the scattering of light by the atmosphere, and the endless night was the permanent default behind it all."

"Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came. And that they will return when the earth is entirely cleansed of its spawn. If you believe in gods.''Do you?''I believe they are not here, yes. It's a faith of sorts."

"The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business."

"Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal."

"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."

"That civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes with the third-level formal style of your dress, you know."

"He who plots revenge must dig two graves."

"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."

"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on.''What do you find on the other side? When you go on?'She shrugged. 'Your life again. What else?"

"Change is possible.''Change is inevitable."

"It's just a thing. You deal with it.' 'As in, one damn thing after another?''Yes, very like."

"But personally, I think [sainthood] is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one's god."

"There is a sad disconnectedness that overcomes a library when its owner is gone."

"At some stage of development an officer had to stop following orders and start generating them."

"When you can't do something truly useful, you tend to vent the pent up energy in something useless but available, like snappy dressing."

"It was hell to be so tired, and still care."

"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."

"It's a . . . transcendental act. Making life. . . . 'By this act, I bring one death into the world.' One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between. . . . Our children change us . . . whether they live or not."

"We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it."

"When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all."

"When I was a wee little kid,' remarked Roic, watching over their shoulders, 'there was a time I thought that any skinny old man I saw was my grandfather. It was pretty confusing."

"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."