Vorkosigan Saga/Quotes

"Anything done twice on Barrayar is tradition."

—Simon Illyan, Memory

"Wait, I haven't--"

—Miles Vorkosigan, Mirror Dance

Aral: You pour out honor all around you, like a fountain.
Cordelia: That's funny. I don't feel full of honor, or anything else.

Aral: Naturally. Fountains keep nothing for themselves.

—Shards of Honor

"Barrayar eats its children."

—Cordelia Vorkosigan, Barrayar

"Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go; have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier", but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the envy and hatred they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and rearranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live."

—Cordelia Vorkosigan

"He becomes whatever is required of him. Not a conscious process, I don't think. Piotr expects a loyal retainer, and Bothari plays the part, deadpan as you please. Vorrutyer wanted a monster, and Bothari became his torturer. And victim. I demanded a good soldier, and he became one for me. You . . ." his voice softened, "you are the only person I know who looks at Bothari and sees a hero. So he becomes one for you. He clings to you because you create him a greater man than he ever dreamed of being."

—Aral Vorkosigan, Barrayar, to Cordelia about Bothari

"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 up from the red dysentery or weaving until 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."

—Ekaterin deconstructs the heck out of some tropes in Komarr

"When my father was home on leave one time from the Betan Astronomical Survey, we made model gliders together. Two things were required to get them to fly. First we had to give them a running start. Then we had to let them go." She sighed. "Learning just when to let go was the hardest part."

—Cordelia Vorkosigan, while watching a five-year-old Miles in the Epilogue of Barrayar

"The man has carried me since I was five years old. It's my turn."

—Emperor Gregor Vorbarra Cryoburn

"Why else do all the stories end when the Count's daughter gets married? Hasn't that ever struck you as a bit sinister? I mean, have you ever read a folk tale where the Princess's mother gets to do anything but die young? I've never been able to figure out if that's supposed to be a warning, or an instruction."

—Kareen Koudelka deconstructs some more tropes in A Civil Campaign