The Warrior's Apprentice Quotes
"All classes stood equal in the Emperor's service now."
"To have addressed him in those days as Kosigan, without the Vor, might have resulted in a duel."
"Oh, sure. I've had an Inquisition's worth. That's why I can walk around today, instead of being carried in a bucket."
"Unclean, unclean, thought Miles wildly; should I ring a bell?"
"My mother was exposed to a poison gas when she was pregnant with me."
"The vilest terms he knew seemed wholly inadequate to the occasion."
"I mean her to have everything right and proper."
"It underwent a world of change between the time I was ten and the time I was twenty."
"I shall be the first Count Vorkosigan to die in bed in nine generations."
"I've never understood why these people won't clip their kids' tubes and turn them loose at age twelve to work out their own damnation, like sensible folk."
"We'd have trouble ahead if those two are getting in bed together."
"Amazingly pleasant stuff. His circulatory system, as well as his digestive, now seemed to be glowing with rainbow hues."
"Relax, they'll bury that guy in files so deep you'll never see him again."
"Two hours, we've only been in this bloody place two bloody hours ..."
"It works great with Betans-they're perfectly happy, because all the time they think they're doing something to you."
"Give her a can opener, and let her see what a pale soft miserable slug this gaudy shell encloses."
"I'm not going to order you into a hostage situation."
"The Oserans are a free coalition of mercenaries. Most captains are Captain-owners."
"It's a wonder you're all still alive. You must choose your foes very carefully."
"Beyond a natural indolence exacerbated by boredom into laziness."
"You are now, Commander Bazil Jesek of the Dendarii Mercenaries, Chief Engineer. You're rough and tough and you eat slovenly engineering technicians for breakfast, and you're appalled at what they've done to this nice ship."
"But your lives have been begged for you, upon a point of honor, by a better soldier than most of you can hope to be."
"By Dendarii regulation, you will all start at the same rank—the lowest, recruit-trainee. This is not an insult; every Dendarii, including myself, has started there."
"Well, if you disobey one of my orders, I'll shoot you on the spot. You figure it out."
"I am permitting you to live. Further privileges will have to be earned."
"Organization seemed to be the key. To get huge masses of properly matched men and material to the right place at the right time in the right order with the swiftness required to even grasp survival—to wrestle an infinitely complex and confusing reality into the abstract shape of victory—organization, it seemed, might even outrank courage as a soldierly virtue."
"More battles have been won or lost by the quartermasters than by any general staff."
"I'm thinking of my hide, believe me! And you can best cover my hide by going out there and making them believe I'm a mercenary commander."
"My mother was a real soldier, too. And I don't think she ever failed to feel another's pain. Not even her enemy's."
"As you can see, I am high because you all have raised me up."
"I only wanted to serve Barrayar, as my father before me. When I couldn't serve Barrayar, I wanted to serve something. To make my life an offering fit to lay at his feet."
"Clay, boy. Only clay. Not fit to receive so golden a sacrifice."
"I serve Barrayar. Its justice is my duty. I never meant to dispense injustice."
"I pray you will spare me a drink from that cup, when it overflows for you."
"Patience. The problem displayed itself with ever-increasing clarity. The solution would follow, in time, with opportunity."