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More Wyld Hunts than even I care to admit have ended badly when the newly-exalted child picks up, oh, I dunno, a shovel, declares "I am the Invincible Spear Princess", and proceeds to kill everyone. It's terribly humiliating when your own nephew is decapitated by a prancing thirteen year old with a garden implement.
- Mnemon Explains, by Kasumi

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Are all of Bujold's books full of funny tidbits like that? If so, then I definitely need to see about picking a few up.

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Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.
-- Terry Pratchett, "Hogfather"

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"What do they think their mothers do, when the lords are at war and a raiding party strikes? Stay in their solars and tat lace?"
That made Kel smile. "My aunt lit barrels of lard and had them catapulted onto Scanran ships this summer."
"As would any delicately reared noblewoman."

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"I am impressed, young lady," he told her with a wry smile. "You have been royally pounded."
Kel smiled at him. "You should see the other fellows."
"There!" cried Neal, holding up his hands. "You see what I have to deal with!"
"You may have noticed my son has an endless capacity for drama," Baird told Kel.
She couldn't help it: she grinned.

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Thirteen sparrows, the entire courtyard flock, stood on the coverlet. Crown hopped up the distance from Kel's navel to somewhere below her chin, where Kel lost sight of her. She closed her eyes, waiting for the gentle peep. Instead the quick gait that circled her cheek stopped beside her ear. "PEEP!"

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"But this custom leads to worse things. Cleon sends me for papers, but someone else traps a first-year in a corner and keeps making him do stupid tasks. He'll maybe hit the first-year to smarten him when the first-year slows down and that is dead wrong. If we take this as pages, what about when we are knights? Do we say, Oh, now I'm going to be nice to the weak and the small? Or do we do as we learned when we were pages?"

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That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy.

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"I'd like to be perfect," Kel said plaintively as they followed their friends. "It would be nice."
"And so daunting for the rest of us, trust me," Neal assured her.

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"Where did you learn all that?" Owen breathed, his eyes wide.
"Some I learned at the Yamani court," Kel replied calmly, gulping down a cup of water. "Some Eda Bell taught me this summer."
"I'm going to treat you with the reverence I reserve for the Crown Jewels," Roald assured her, his eyes crinkled with mirth.

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Deciding to be helpful, Anya added, We can both speak Norse and do the dance of Capitalist Superiority and do magic.

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"Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars: Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom in the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."

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"Prophets never say anything new. There's nothing in Ix's teachings that you won't find in Buddha or Moses. We always already know: Treat other people kindly because kindness matters even when it is not returned. Courage matters even if you lose. Don't dwell on the pleasures of things that you feel it is wrong to do. Try to live your days as if you were grateful for them. Love your neighbor, and keep your definition of 'neighbor' broad.
Everything the human race knows about living well and living together fits onto a few sheets of paper in big type. One prophet after another tells us the same thing. The hard part isn't to think of it, which has already been done, or to understand it, which any child can do, but to do it."

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In Life's name and for Life's sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so -- till the Universe's end.

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It fell down, a great disastrous fall like a lightning-stricken tower's, and wept darkness with desire for the light.

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