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

The most important thing about quests, he decided, was not in finding what you went looking for, but in finding what you never could have imagined before you ventured forth.

You should have fallen in love with a happy man, if you wanted happiness. But no, you had to fall for the breathtaking beauty of pain.

As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor

Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it.

Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant.

"It was suicide, wasn't it?" "In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate." "Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip. "Exactly, my lord."