“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

“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.”

“The child is mine and Petra's. It's especially important to us because it's the first we know of that definitely does not have my condition." "You mean it isn't ugly?”

“None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing.”

“Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was gross insult.”

“If only we could have talked to you, the hive-queen said in Ender's words. But since it could not be, we ask only this: that you remember us, not as enemies, but as a tragic sisters, changed into foul shape by fate or God or evolution. If we had kissed, it would have been the miracle to make us human in each other's eyes. Instead we killed each other. But still we welcome you now as guestfriends. Come into our home, daughters of Earth; dwell in our tunnels, harvest our fields; what we cannot do, you are now our hands to do for us. Blossom, trees; ripen, fields; be warm for them, suns; be fertile for them, planets: they are our adopted daughters, and they have come home.”

“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.”