“On the sixth day God saw He couldn't do it all, so He created ENGINEERS”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“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.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“There was no limit to what one man might do, if he gave all, and held back nothing.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“If you ever have to make a choice between learning and inspiration, boy, choose learning. It works more of the time.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“It's not over, is it?" Silver said quietly to Leo, as they floated out of Minchenko's way. "Somehow I thought our troubles would be over if only we could get away from Mr. Van Atta."
Leo shook his head. A jubilant grin still kept crooking up the corner of his mouth. He took one of her upper hands.
"Our troubles would have been over if Brucie-Baby had scored a hit. Or if the vortex mirror had blown up in the middle of the jump. Or if- Don't be afraid of trouble, Silver. They're a sign of life. We'll deal with them together - tomorrow".”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“There is nothing, nothing, nothing more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Were you BORN inhuman or did you grow so by degrees?! MS, MD, PHD?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“The shuttle bumped, bounced, banged, rocked, and roared out over the flat, cracked surface. She was sorry she had never made a pass at Leo. Clearly, you could die while waiting for other people to start your life for you. Her seat harness cut across her breasts as deceleration sucked her forward and the rumbling vibration rattled her teeth.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“I do know, dividing our energies among a thousand what-ifs instead of concentrating them for the one sure next-step is a kind of self-sabotage. It’s not what we do next week, it’s what we do next that counts most.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Andy was clutching her blue T-shirt. She rolled over, as Tony had, palms to the surface, and pushed up. Andy, turning his head toward his father, reached out with his upper hands and tried to shove off from Claire with his lowers. The floor leaped up and smacked him. For”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Her lips thinned, but she ignored the bait. “Schedules have been moved up in all departments, you know. Claire received her new reproduction assignment. It didn’t include Tony.” “Reproduction assignment? You mean, having a baby?” Leo could feel his face flushing. Somewhere within him, a long-controlled steam pressure began to build. “Do you hide what you’re really doing from yourselves with those weasel-words, too? And here I thought the propaganda was just for us peons.” Yei started to speak, but Leo overrode her, bursting out, “Good God! Were you born inhuman, or did you grow so by degrees—M.S., M.D., Ph.D. . . .” Yei”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Much worse. We couldn’t get any of those to come at all. Some of them are visibly fused. Some idiot must have welded them.” “Welded, yes. But not by some idiot. By the sun.” “Leo, it doesn’t get that hot—” “Not directly. What you’re seeing is spontaneous vacuum diffusion welding. Metal molecules are evaporating off the surfaces of the pieces in the vacuum. Slowly, to be sure, but it’s a measurable phenomenon. On the clamped areas they migrate into their neighboring surfaces and eventually achieve quite a nice bond. A little faster for the hot pieces on the sun side, a little slower for the cold pieces in the shade—but I’ll bet some of those clamps have been in place for twenty years.” “Oh. But what do we do about them?” “They’ll have to be cut.” Pramod’s lips pursed in worry. “That will slow things down.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“And so Leo and Silver’s beautiful scheme for peacefully detaching the downsiders, hammered out through four secret planning sessions, was blown away on a breath. Wasted was the flattery, the oblique suggestion, that had gone into convincing Van Atta that it was his idea to gather, unusually, the entire Habitat downsider staff at once and make his announcement in a speech persuading them all they were being commended, not condemned . . . The shaped charges to cut the lecture module away from the Habitat at the touch of a button were all in place. The emergency breath masks to supply the nearly three hundred bodies with oxygen for the few hours necessary to push the module around the planet to the transfer station were carefully hidden within. The two pusher crews were drilled, their pushers fueled and ready. Fool”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Leo will be coming with us,” Emma offered, trying to sound optimistic. “He’s a downsider.” “I’m not sure that’s exactly his field of expertise,” said Claire honestly, trying to picture Leo as a medtech. He didn’t care for hydraulic systems, he’d said.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Leo could not, afterwards, recall running forward or swinging Van Atta around to face him, but only Van Atta’s surprised, open-mouthed expression. “Bruce,” he sang through a red haze, “you smarmy creep—lay off.” The uppercut to Van Atta’s jaw that punctuated this command was surprisingly effective, considering it was the first time Leo had struck a man in anger in his life. Van Atta sprawled backwards on the concrete. Leo”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Between one breath and the next, the vision took him. It came not as a chain of reason, more words words words, but as a blinding image, all complete in its first moment, inherent, holistic, gestalt, inspired. Every hour of his life from now on would be but the linear exploration of its fullness.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
“Dr. Yei,” Bannerji objected, “if you’re trying to knock a man out you’ve got to hit him a lot harder than that.” Yei recoiled fearfully as Van Atta surged up out of his seat. “I didn’t want to risk killing him . . .” “Why not?” muttered Bannerji under his breath. Furiously,”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Falling Free
Lois McMaster Bujold
Born place: in Columbus, Ohio, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“The fact that all of this was happening in virtual space made no difference. Being virtually killed by virtual laser in virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.”
― Douglas Adams, quote from Mostly Harmless
“When you’re willing to give up the things that mean the most to you just to see someone else happy, that’s real love.”
― Colleen Hoover, quote from November 9
“Every life has a watershed moment, an instant when you realize you're about to make a choice that will define everything else you ever do, and that if you choose wrong, there may not be that many things left to choose. Sometimes the wrong choice is the only one that lets you face the end with dignity, grace, and the awareness that you're doing the right thing.
I'm not sure we can recognize those moments until they've passed us.”
― Mira Grant, quote from Feed
“War was a central theme in maths books too. School books - because the Taliban printed books soley for boys - did not calcualte in apples and cakes, but in bullets and kalasnikovs. Something like this: 'little Omar has a kalasnikov with three magazines. There are twenty bullets in each magazine. He uses two thirds of the bullets and kills sixty infidels does he kill with each bullet?”
― Åsne Seierstad, quote from The Bookseller of Kabul
“Ali wrinkled her forehead and cocked her head to the side. Clearly, she hadn't prepared herself for me to be pleasant. After a moment, her eyes narrowed. "What exactly did you and Lake did yesterday?" she asked, like we might have held up a gas station and gone on a crime spree across the country, all in the span of just a few hours.
"We went to Mexico, had some tequila, eloped with a pair of drug smugglers, and took part-time jobs as exotic dancers. You know, same old, same old."
Ali snorted.
"I'm torn on stripper names. It's either going to be Lady Love or Wolfsbane Lane. Thoughts?"
Ali threw a onesie at me. "Brat.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, quote from Raised by Wolves
Sounder
Free Will
A Hero's Guide to De...
The Powerbook
Chuang Tzu: Basic Wr...
The Story of B: An A...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
