“Maybe we don't need to hit the duck, Jonathan. Maybe all we need to do is say what we must say once, to another human being, openly and honestly, with humility and remorse. Maybe that's enough.”

“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.”

“With what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn't that we're supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we're the pieces." Nick says."Maybe," Nick says, "what we're supposed to do is come together. That's how we stop the breaking.”

“Maybe it's what we don't say/that saves us.”

“Maybe that was the problem," Jacob said softly. "Don't we all need to feel needed? That we'd be missed if we were gone?”

“As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generaitons, giving brith to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire...I'll put it bluntly. Human beings are free excpet when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me - to find out what you're good for.”