“Soldiers don't complain...I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war.”
“Josh: "Are you really going to sit there and pretend that I don't exist?"Shel: "I'm not pretending you don't exist. In fact, I am very aware you are right there. I am pointedly ignoring you.”
“I don't understand what's going on, but i'll just pretend that I do.”
“What am I now, Alai?""Still good.""At what?""At--anything. There's a million soldiers who'd follow you to the end of the universe.""I don't want to go to the end of the universe.""So where do you want to go? They'll follow you."I want to go home, thought Ender, but I don't know where it is.”
“In battle, in a war, a soldier sees only a tiny fragment of what is available to be seen. The soldier is not a photographic machine. He is not a camera. He registers, so to speak, only those few items that he is predisposed to register and not a single thing more. Do you understand this? So I am saying to you that after a battle each soldier will have different stories to tell, vastly different stories, and that when a was is ended it is as if there have been a million wars, or as many wars as there were soldiers.”
“I relish my debauchery. I don't regret it or shy away from it and pretend that I'm gonna stop it. This is who I am, and I'm not going to change for anyone.”