Orson Scott Card

“Didn't Jesus say something disparaging about casting pearls before swine?”

“saying you don't know or care about God is the same as saying you believe he doesn't exist, because if you had even a hope that he existed, you would care very much.”

“He did what he thought was right,”

“He could just look at people and listen to them and suddenly he'd know things about them.”

“Will people really go?” “People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.”

“because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a lie.” “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

“We’re the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.”

“You know what I was thinking? [Ruthie] got so excited when she was spouting this ahistorical countertextual nonsense, and I caught myself thinking, 'What an idiot her teacher must be,' and thinking about her teacher made me realize - the kind of excitement she was showing as she mindlessly spouted back the nonsense she learned in college, that's just like the excitement some of my own students show. And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a 'brilliant student' is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we've been teaching them.""Self-knowledge is a painful thing," said Esther. "To learn that your best students are parrots after all.”

“Maybe she couldn't know who she was today. Maybe it was enough to know that she was no longer who she was before.”

“Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.”

“If our systems should fail, we would faithfully report the fact. We have no ego-protection that would cause us to deceive you or ourselves. Whereasyou are engaged in ego-protection right now. You thought you would be necessary during the voyage, and you now discover that you were not. This makes you feel bad.”

“Are you asking us to impregnate all the females on all the ships with your DNA, so that you can be sure of having progeny?""No!" said Ram in horror. "What a terrible thing for a woman, to wake up pregnant- a violation of trust. It would destroy all nineteen colonies.""Not to mention being embarrassing when all the babies look like you.”

“I'm just saying that I...I regret that everybody else has nineteen chances, and only I am limited to a single chance for my genes to continue.""Because you believe your genes would confer a great blessing upon the human race."Ram thought about this for a moment, "I suppose that's what every adolescent male believes with his whole heart.”

“I had no idea we planned to be so ruthless.""It was not publicized or even discussed with the political arm of the colonization program. Ruthlessness was necessary but wins no votes.""But this is not our world, to treat however we want!""Visiting here as students of an alien evolutionary tradition would not be either cost-effective or, ultimately, successful. We would inevitably contaminate Garden, or worse yet, become contaminated and bring potentially deadly Gardenian life forms back to Earth. The three continental preserves will be sufficient to allow biologists to study alien life at some point in the future. And if you really thought we would colonize this world without making it 'ours', you'd be far too naive to command this expedition.""I...didn't realize...""You didn't think about it at all," said the expendable. "The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.""And you aren't morally blind?""We see the moral ironies very clearly. We simply don't care.”

“We're an ecological disaster.""Exactly," said the expendable.”

“You guessed it! And you say you aren't creative!""We did not guess anythiung. We deduced it from the plethora of data you provided us, both consciously and unconsciously.""And yet you couldn't detect the irony in my enthusiasm.""We detected it. As information, however, it was worthless.”

“We have discussed your definition, analyzed its ramifications to a reasonable depth, and accept it," said the expendable."Meaning I gave you what you wanted?""Ambition and desire are human traits. You gave us what we lacked.”

“And when we diverge, it will be impossible for the expendables and the ship's computers on all the ships to know which version of Ram Odin to obey," said Ram. "Therefore I order you and all the other expendables to immediately kill every copy of Ram except me.""I'm so sorry," said the expendable. "One of the versions of Ram Odin did not include the word 'immediately,' and therefore his order was complete a fraction of a second before all the others. He is the real Ram Odin."Ram gave a little half smile. "How ironic. By specifying that you should act at once-"The expendable reached out with both hands, gave Ram's head a twist, and broke his neck. The sentence remained unfinished, but that did not matter, since the person saying it was not the real Ram Odin.”

“So our reliance on the computers caused the failure of the mission?" asked the expendable."The mission didn't fail," said Ram. "It succeeded nineteen times. We're just the exhaust trail.”

“But I am designed to last forever," said the expendable, "if not interfered with.""Isn't that nice? Expendable yet eternal. You'll be able to go back and observe any part of human history that you wish. Watch the pyramids being unbuilt. See the ice ages go and come in reverse. Watch the de-extinction of the dinosaurs as a meteor leaps out of the Gulf of Mexico.""I will have no useful task. I will not be able to help the human race in any way. My existence will have no meaning after you are dead.""Now you know how humans feel all the time.”

“So that's it?" asked the expendable."Final decision," said Ram. "And it's the right one.""Why do you think so?""Because we live or die, we'll learn something important from jumping into the fold. Thousands of future travelers will either follow us or not. But if we don't make the jump, we'll learn nothing, have no new options.""A lovely speech. It has been sent back to Earth. It will inspire millions.""Shut up," said Ram.”

“Whoop-de-do," said Ram."What?""I'm celebrating.""Was that irony or loss of mental function?" asked the expendable."Was that a rhetorical questions, a bit of humor, or a sign that you are losing confidence in me?""I have no confidence in you, Ram," said the expendable."Well, thanks.""You're welcome.”

“How did I become the one to make this decision for everyone?”

“Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to create the ideal female setting, where a woman can count on stability; our legal and moral codes that try to abolish violence and promote permanence of ownership and enforce contracts--those represent the primary female strategy, the taming of the male.”

“I'm not a liar, sir,' she said."'No, I'm sure you sincerely become whatever it is you're pretending to be.”

“That was interesting, to find that it wasn't hunger that caused children to become bullies on the street. The bulliness was already in the child, and whatever the stakes were, they would find a way to act as they needed to act. … Intelligence and education, which all these children had, apparently didn't make any important difference in human nature.”

“And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a 'brilliant student' is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we've been teaching them.”

“Endurance, after all, was a kind of victory; a kind of heroism, too.”

“Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like Peter. Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter.”

“Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage...As chairman emeritus of the extreme right-wing National Organization for Marriage”

“All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better—So why do I hate my life?”

“Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.”

“As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.”

“A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.”

“Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.”

“I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.”

“I'm crazy," said Ender. "But I think I'm OK.”

“Nonsense," said Graff. "Ender always has plans within plans.”

“And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in the very moment when I love them--""You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding."No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist.”

“It's about me, or people wouldn't be so anxious to keep me from knowing about it. The absence of information is information. ~ Ender”

“This is the Speaker for the Dead? Judging someone by appearances?" "Maybe I've fallen in love with Grego." "You've always been a sucker for people who pee on you.”

“So it's Mr. Wiggin and Who The Hell Are You.''About right,' Bean replied.”

“As god is my witness, it was never my intent to throw out the constitution. I thought it was hanging by a thread, and I could save it... You don't save it by cutting that thread. - President Nielson”

“I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.”

“This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.”

“I tell students that suspense comes, not from knowing almost nothing, but from knowing almost everything and caring very much about the small part still unknown.”

“I was born with more power inside myself than I ever dreamed. But along with it there came no more sense than any other idiotic kid. Somewhere along in here I need to grow up into a man I can stand to live with. A man who doesn't just survive, but deserves to.”

“Eko brushed a tear from her eye, and Immo jeered at her, but father held up a hand. "Never mock a tender heart," he said.”

“Might-have-beens are a bitch.”