One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. "He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine. "Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. "Now he's monogamous." Vordarian choked, sputtering.

I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him.

I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back.

If there's no game, isn't winning a pretty meaningless concept?

I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.

Yes," Vorkosigan agreed, "I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction.

I spent my 20s working in patient care at a large university hospital, an experience that has informed all my work and has given me a lot of human observation to draw on.