Quotes from Orson Scott Card

All education is self-education," said Noxon. "And all self-education builds on the foundation provided by your teachers.

As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire.

They prayed for it, they want it, but when they got it, they complained.

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it

Children are a perpetual, self-renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves. And

Focus too closely on the goal you haven't accomplished, and you'll fail to notice the victories you achieve along the way.

Unless he's really clever," said Theresa. "Smarter than us?" said Peter. He and John Paul looked at each other. Then both of them shook their heads, said, "Naw," and then burst out laughing.

Rock and roll is music, said Vanya. Prokofiev is music, Stravinski is music, Tchaikovski and Borodin and Rimski-Korsakov and even Rachmaninov, THEY are music. Rock and roll is smart boys with no respect, YOU are rock and roll.

You care. Not the cares of the body. But you have the caring of the soul. It's a different kind of desire, but you all have it, and it never goes away.

At first it was the man of real authority they noticed, but later, where everyone had authority, it was his cargo they cared to see.

And Americans always think international laws are for other people anyway

What I understand now is this: There is no harder job than parenting. There is no human relationship with such potential for great achievement and awful destructiveness, and despite all the experts who write about it, no one has the slightest idea whether any decision will be right or best or even not-horrible for any particular child. It is a job that simply cannot be done right.

Why else do we read anyway? I think most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not true because we're hungry for another kind of truth: The mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-real world. Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.

I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love. My parents died so others could live; now I live, so others must die.

As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes.

Not at all,' said Dom Cristão. 'I think we've taken a step toward something truly magnificent. But humankind almost never forgives true greatness.

It was not about physical strength, Wit reminded himself. It was 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. That's what the SEAL instructors were looking for: men and women who could disregard the pleadings of the body. Pain was nothing, sleep was nothing. What was chaffed skin, wrecked muscles, bleeding sores? The body chooses to be sore. The body chooses to be exhausted. But the SEAL mind rejects it. The SEAL mind commands the body, not the other way around.

I'm on his death list, too." "Then why are you still alive?" asked Peter. "Because, contrary to widespread belief, Achilles is not a genius and he makes mistakes.

I didn't know how you'd get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.

There are miracles even reactivity can't pull off, Ender

Why are they so stupid?' asked Human. 'Not to know the truth when they hear it?' 'They aren't stupid,' said the Speaker. 'This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question. They never thought to question the idea that the original Speaker for the Dead died three thousand years ago, even though they know how star travel prolongs life.

How many times are you two going to have to save me from myself before this whole drama runs its course?" asked Peter. "I think…six times," said Father. "No, eight," said Mother. "You two think you're so cute," said Peter. "Mm-hm." "Yep.

They also knew that Ender trusted them to do as they judged best when he gave them no orders.

Ah,' said Speaker. 'There's so much that we don't understand. And so much that you don't understand. We should tell each other more.