Quotes from Diplomatic Immunity

“We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“We did it," he muttered to Ekaterin, now perching on the chair arm. "Why didn't anybody stop us? Why aren't there more regulations about this sort of thing? What fool in their right mind would put me in charge of a baby? Two babies?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“I always thought my parents could fix anything. Now it's my turn. Dear God, how did this happen?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“to slide halfway to stupid and stop was rare indeed.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“All sorts of men don't make it home for the births of their children. But My mother was out of town on the day I was born, so she missed it, just seems . . . seems like a more profound complaint, somehow.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Are we not all called on to yield our children back to the world, in the end?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“To Komarr, my lord? Or Sergyar?” “No. Calculate the shortest possible jump route directly to Rho Ceta.” Vorpatril’s head jerked back in startlement. “If the orders I received from Sector Five HQ mean what we think, you’ll hardly get passage there. Reception by plasma fire and fusion shells the moment you pop out of the wormhole would be what I’d expect.” “Unpack, Miles,” Ekaterin’s voice drifted in. He grinned briefly at the familiar exasperation in her voice. “By the time we arrive there, I will have arranged our clearances with the Cetagandan Empire.” I hope. Or else they were all going to be in more trouble than Miles ever wanted to imagine. “Barrayar is bringing their kidnapped haut babies back to them. On the end of a long stick. I get to be the stick.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Right.” Roic nodded. He glanced over Miles’s growing array of medical attachments. “By the way, m’lord. Had you happened to mention your seizure disorder to the surgeon yet?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“And . . . it would be a real relief for me to have someone along I can talk to freely.” Her smile tilted a little at this. “Talk, or vent?” “I—hem!—suspect this one is going to entail quite a lot of venting, yes. D’you think you can stand it?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Miles bowed, sitting; his floater bobbed slightly. “My horse would like you fine. He’s extremely amiable, not to mention much too old and lazy to stampede anywhere. And I personally guarantee that with a Vorkosigan liveried armsman at your back, not the most benighted backcountry hick would offer you insult.” Roic,”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Send a patroller to check,” said Miles a little tightly. Remembering he was supposed to be a diplomat, he added, “If you please.” Teris”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“I’ll bet. I . . .” He couldn’t say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. “I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven’t had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“The second ward was declared a temporary holding cell for their prisoner, the ba, who followed in the procession, bound to a float pallet. Miles scowled as the pallet drifted past, towed on its control lead by a watchful, muscular sergeant.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“But the herm was gray-faced, lips purple-blue, eyelids fluttering. An IV pump, not dependent upon potentially erratic ship’s gravity, infused yellow fluid rapidly into Bel’s right arm. The left arm was strapped to a board; plastic tubing filled with blood ran from under a bandage and into a hybrid appliance bound around with quantities of plastic tape. A second tube ran back again, its dark surface moist with condensation.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle Garnet Five. Just be your usual charming self.” Ekaterin’s vision of him, he reminded himself, was not exactly objective. Thank God. “I’ve been trying to charm quaddies all day, with no noticeable success.” “If you make it plain you like people, it’s hard for them to resist liking you back. And Nicol will be playing in the orchestra tonight.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Diplomatic Immunity

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“Who are we to say getting incested or abused or violated or any of those things can’t have their positive aspects in the long run? … You have to be careful of taking a knee-jerk attitude. Having a knee-jerk attitude to anything is a mistake, especially in the case of women, where it adds up to this very limited and condescending thing of saying they’re fragile, breakable things that can be destroyed easily. Everybody gets hurt and violated and broken sometimes. Why are women so special? Not that anybody ought to be raped or abused, nobody’s saying that, but that’s what is going on. What about afterwards? All I’m saying is there are certain cases where it can enlarge you or make you more of a complete human being, like Viktor Frankl. Think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good that it happened? No, of course not. But did you read Viktor Frankl? Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning? It’s a great, great book, but it comes out of his experience. It’s about his experience in the human dark side. Now think about it, if there was no Holocaust, there’d be no Man’s Search for Meaning… . Think about it. Think about being degraded and brought within an inch of your life, for example. No one’s gonna say the sick bastards who did it shouldn’t be put in jail, but let’s put two things into perspective here. One is, afterwards she knows something about herself that she never knew before. What she knows is that the most totally terrible terrifying thing that she could ever have imagined happening to her has now happened, and she survived. She’s still here, and now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows. Look, totally terrible things happen… . Existence in life breaks people in all kinds of awful fucking ways all the time, trust me I know. I’ve been there. And this is the big difference, you and me here, cause this isn’t about politics or feminism or whatever, for you this is just ideas, you’ve never been there. I’m not saying nothing bad has ever happened to you, you’re not bad looking, I’m sure there’s been some sort of degradation or whatever come your way in life, but I’m talking Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning type violation and terror and suffering here. The real dark side. I can tell from just looking at you, you never. You wouldn’t even wear what you’re wearing, trust me.
What if I told you it was my own sister that was raped? What if I told you a little story about a sixteen-year-old girl who went to the wrong party with the wrong guy and four of his buddies that ended up doing to her just about everything four guys could do to you in terms of violation? But if you could ask her if she could go into her head and forget it or like erase the tape of it happening in her memory, what do you think she’d say? Are you so sure what she’d say? What if she said that even after that totally negative as what happened was, at least now she understood it was possible. People can. Can see you as a thing. That people can see you as a thing, do you know what that means? Because if you really can see someone as a thing you can do anything to him. What would it be like to be able to be like that? You see, you think you can imagine it but you can’t. But she can. And now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows.
This is what you wanted to hear, you wanted to hear about four drunk guys who knee-jerk you in the balls and make you bend over that you didn’t even know, that you never saw before, that you never did anything to, that don’t even know your name, they don’t even know your name to find out you have to choose to have a fucking name, you have no fucking idea, and what if I said that happened to ME? Would that make a difference?”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

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