But pain… seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

About Lois McMaster Bujold

Lois McMaster Bujold ( boo-ZHOHLD; born November 2, 1949) is an American speculative fiction writer. She has won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record (not counting his Retro Hugos). Bujold is best known for her Vorkosigan Saga, a series of science fiction novels...

More quotations from Lois McMaster Bujold

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

Any community's arm of force—military, police, security—needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

Our children change us… whether they live or not.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

You have to be careful who you let define your good.

—Lois McMaster Bujold

History

1 Nov 2024 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?