Quotes from Orson Scott Card

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be

There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will teach you how to destroy and conquer.

Will people really go?' 'People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.

If you had any brains, you'd be in a real career, like selling life insurance.

I want to see the king, I said, after explaining who I was. Wonderful, said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. I'm glad for you. That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. Why are you so glad? I asked. Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant.

I am a Gordian knot. Don't unravel, just slice.

People get used to anything, if it just goes on.

It was even before he left Earth that he first thought of it as a planet, like any other, not particularly his own.

We people only live on the top, like the bugs that live on the scum of the still water near the shore.

In my dreams, said Ender, I'm never sure whether I'm really me.

As I recall, St. Paul stood by and held the coats of the men who were stoning him (Stephen). Apparently he wasn't a believer at the time. In fact, I think he was regarded as the most terrible enemy of the Church. And yet he later repented, didn't he? So I suggest you think of me, not as the enemy of God, but as an apostle who has not yet been stopped on the road to Damascus

I must rejoice that I am part of her, instead of resenting that I am not more of her.

You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it's all going to lead.

The loneliness of power.

He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant.

You don't know what would have happened if I hadn't pushed. Nobody knows. I did it the way I did it, and it worked. Above all, it worked.

To keep dignity, and give honor when it's due, so that defeat is not disgrace.

We are who we are. When changes come, we start with what we are right then, and then we work to try to become whoever we need to be.

The piggies were not to be disturbed-

all living things are manipulated as long as there is a will, it is bent and twisted constantly. Only the dead are allowed the luxury of freedom, and then only because they want nothing, and therefore can't be thwarted.

Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins—thoroughly. If anybody's going to be scared, let it be the buggers." "Makes you almost feel sorry for them, knowing Ender's going to be coming after them.

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.

Never believe a rumor of my death,' said Peter. 'I have as many lives as a cat. Also as many teeth, as many claws, and the same cheery, cooperative disposition.

Maybe that's who you are, what you remember." - Valentine