Orson Scott Card

“I think Bonzo died. I dreamed about it last night. I remembered the way he looked after I jammed his face with my head. I think I must have pushed his nose back into his brain. The blood was coming out of his eyes. I think he was dead right then.”

“Americans love to pick up, move on, start over. But instead of being somebody fresh and new, they become somebody lonely and lost, or, far too often these days, they become nobody at all, a machine for satisfying hunger, without loyalty or honor or duty.”

“But if you caught my informant,' said Achilles, 'why in the world would Chamrajnagar—or Graff, if it was him—launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they’d risk a shuttle and it’s crew just to catch me? I find that quite… flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain.”

“[That wall] might be breached sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between them was the roots that had already grown low and deep, under the wall, where they could not be broken.The most terrible thing, though, was the fear that the wall could never be breached, that in his heart Alai was glad of the separation, and was ready to be Ender's enemy. For now that they could not be together, they must be infinitely apart, and what had been sure and unshakable was now fragile and insubstantial; from the moment we are not together, Alai is a stranger, for he has a life now that will be no part of mine, and that means that when I see him we will not know each other.”

“Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.”

“Peace. That's what salaam means. Peace unto you."The words brought forth an echo from Ender's memory. His mother's voice reading to him softly, when he was very young....The kiss, the word, the peace were with him still. I am only what I remember, and Alai is my friend in a memory so intense that they can't tear him out. Like Valentine, the strongest memory of all.”

“If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.”

“Faith doesn't mean that you never doubt. It only means that you never act upon your doubts.”

“Sometimes happiness consists of finding the right balance of misery.”

“You who speak languages, you are such liars.”

“The strangest thing about humans is the way they pair up, males and females. Constantly at war with each other, never content to leave each other alone. They never seem to grasp the idea that males and females are separate species with completely different needs and desires, forced to come together only to reproduce Of course you feel that way. Your mates are nothing but mindless drones, extensions of yourself, without their own identity. We know out lovers with perfect understanding. Humans invent an imaginary lover and put that mask over the face of the body in their bed. That is the tradegy of language, my friend. Those who know each other only through symbolic representations are forced to imagine each other. And because their imagination is imperfect, they are often wrong, This is the source of their misery. And some of their strength, I think. Your people and mine, each for their own evolutionary reasons, mate with vastly unequal partners. Our mates are always, hopelessly, our intellectual inferiors. Humans mate with beings who challenge their supremcy. They have conflicts between mates, not because their communication is inferior to ours, but because they commune with each other at all.”

“A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

“It is astonishing what can be done when people are truly loyal to each other and eager to meet each other's needs.”

“A broken clock is right two times a day.”

“The world is full of grief - to the exact degree we allow ourselves to love other people. (Mazer Rackham)”

“People will always go. Always. They always believe the can make a better life than in the old world. What the hell, maybe they can.”

“We live in a time when moderates are treated worse than extremists, being punished as if they were more fanatical than the actual fanatics.”

“What good were the rules of time when the rules of magic contradicted them.”

“As history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system. It’s like those foolish attempts to control immigration to American based on the traits that were deemed desirable, when in fact the only trait that defines Americans historically is “descended from somebody willing to give up everything to live there.” Willingness is the single most important test.”

“Are you all right, Sir?" asked Hezekiah."Just fighting over old battles in my mind," said John. "It's the problem with age. You have all these rusty arguments, and no quarrel to use them in. My brain is a museum, but alas, I'm the only visitor, and even I am not terribly interested in the displays."Hezekiah laughed, but there was affection in it. "I would love nothing better than to visit there. But I'm afraid I'd be tempted to loot the place, and carry it all away with me.”

“Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf.”

“Be proud, Bonito, pretty boy. You can go home and tell your father, Yes, I beat up Ender Wiggin, who was barely ten years old, and I was thirteen. And I had only six of my friends to help me, and somehow we managed to defeat him, even though he was naked and wet and alone--Ender Wiggin is so dangerous and terrifying it was all we could do not to bring two hundred.”

“...He found himself filled with joy, for now his existence had a meaning. He had a future, because he was part of a world that had a future, and instead of wanting to decide for himself and determine that future for everyone else, he knew that he would be glad just to touch some small part of it. To marry and give happiness to his wife. To have a child and give it the same love that his parents gave him. To have a friend and ease his burdedn now and then. To have a skill or a secret and teach it to a student whose life might be changed a little by what he learned. Why had he dreamed of leading armies, whichwould accomplish nothing, when he could do these miraculous small things and change the world?”

“The piggies were not to be disturbed-”

“A duel is just two murders who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.”

“No one can know a false thing, one can only believe it with certainty until it is contradicted. (Page 7)”

“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.'The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him.-San Angelo Letters to an Incipient Heretic”

“It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.”

“Bonzo, he pre-cise. He so careful, he piss on a plate and never splash.”

“Child-rearing today was so complicated. You always had to think of what they'd say on television later.”

“I will never hurt you.I will always help you.If you are hungryIll give you my food.If you are frightenedI am your friend.I love you now.And love does not end.”

“What did this portend? He still breathed, the instruments did not change, his heart beat on. But he called to Peter. Did this mean that he longed to live the life of his child of the mind, Young Peter? Or in some kind of delirium was he speaking to his brother the Hegemon? Or earlier, his brother as a boy. Peter, wait for me. Peter, did I do well? Peter, don't hurt me. Peter, I hate you. Peter for one smile of yours I'd die or kill. What was his message?”

“Does it help if we're so strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome everything in our way no matter what?" asked Wang-mu."I think those are the pertinent virtues, yes," said Peter."Then let's do it. That's us in spades.”

“This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?""I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?""Yes," she said."That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours.”

“Miro, I'm so sorry. I always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and . . . now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement."It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live.”

“Firequencher raised his hand. "I've been staying out of family conversations. Do I get credit for that?”

“Oh, Pipo, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice"I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.”

“Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves- either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing.”

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things. ”

“Nobodys life ever goes according to plan. So why do we keep on planning?Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become. And fail.I don't say 'fail'. I saw we aim and miss. But we still hit something.”

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

“The ways of love are strange and hard:The love you want is always barred;The love you have you want to change.The ways of love are hard and strange.”

“The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet.”

“Fatherhood to us was an act of passion, soon forgot; but not to Orem ap Avonap. Never guessing that the blond and happy farmer was no blood of his, Orem had taken a part of that simple man into himself and saved it for this time. At any time in the Palace he might run by, Youth on this shoulders or, as time went by, toddling along behind.”

“Test can't messure what really matters.”

“Why else do we read fiction, anyway? Not to be impressed by somebody's dazzling language - or at least I hope that's not our reason. I think that most of us read these stories that we know are not 'true' because we're hungry for another kind of truth: The mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story.”

“You understand that the piggies are animals, and you no more condemn them for murdering Libo and Pipo than you condemn a cabra for shewing up capim."That's right," said Miro.Ender smiled. "And that's why you'll never learn anything from them. Because you think of them as animals.”

“You're cultural supremacists to the core. You'll perform your Questionable Activities to help out the poor little piggies, but there isn't a chance in the world you'll notice when they have something to teach you.”

“We've devoted our lives to learning about them!" Miro said.Ender stopped. "Not from them.”

“Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.”