“Nevertheless"you've seen a strawberrythat's had a struggle; yetwas, where the fragments met,a hedgehog or a star-fish for the multitudeof seeds. What better foodthan apple seeds - the fruitwithin the fruit - locked inlike counter-curved twinhazelnuts? Frost that killsthe little rubber-plant -leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can'tharm the roots; they still growin frozen ground. Once wherethere was a prickley-pear -leaf clinging to a barbed wire,a root shot down to growin earth two feet below;as carrots from mandrakesor a ram's-horn root some-times. Victory won't cometo me unless I goto it; a grape tendrilties a knot in knots tillknotted thirty times - sothe bound twig that's under-gone and over-gone, can't stir.The weak overcomes itsmenace, the strong over-comes itself. What is therelike fortitude! What sapwent through that little threadto make the cherry red!”

“I saw our golden years on a black gale,our time of love spilt in the furious dust."O we are winter-caught, and we must fail,"said the dark dream, "and time is overcast."-And woke into the night; but you were there,and small as seed in the wild dark we lay.Small as seed under the gulfs of airis set the stubborn heart that waits for day.I saw our love the root that holds the vinein the enduring earth, that can reply,"Nothing shall die unless for me it die.Murder and hate and love alike are mine";and therefore fear no winter and no stormwhile in the knot of earth that root lies warm.”

“The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.”

“The words shot through Vivi's bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged.”

“the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.”

“You have to be careful what seeds you sow on dirt where your roots have not yet touched the bedrock.”