Quotes from Orson Scott Card

Or maybe laughter was how they pushed painful memories out of their minds. Perhaps laughter was the only way they could keep from killing each other.

Don't you understand, any of you? There's only one species that we know of that has deliberately, consciously, knowingly tried to destroy another sentient species without any serious attempt at communication or warning. We're the ones. The first xenocide failed because the victims of the attack managed to conceal exactly one pregnant female.

He dreamed, as human beings always dream—random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious mind tries to put together into coherent stories. Bean rarely paid attention to his own dreams, rarely even remembered that he dreamed at all. But

Todo es una ficción, de todas formas. Hacemos lo que hacemos y luego inventamos las razones, pero nunca son las razones verdaderas. La verdad está siempre fuera de nuestro alcance.

Power comes only by persuasion; by love and service. It comes from trying and learning.

We become one tribe because we say we're one tribe.

The bones are hard and by themselves seem dead and stony, but by rooting into and pulling themselves against the skeleton, the rest of the body carries out all the motions of life.

You mean I have to get the confession from the white boy? They train these boys to lie, you know. If you're white they don't let you grow up to adulthood if you haven't mastered the art of pretending to say one thing while actually intending to do another.

The reason for a woman's life," said Sarai, "is the same as the reason for a man's—so that she might have joy.

But the fact remains – we humans are the sentient species that has shown the most tendency to deliberately refuse to communicate with other species and instead destroy them utterly. Maybe the descoladores are varelse and maybe they're not. But I'm a lot more frightened at the thought that we are varelse.

Porque los que llegan a la cima en un imperio son los intrigantes, los asesinos o los señores de la guerra.

calling a man a god did not elevate the man, it only diminished the idea of godhood.

Wang-mu was surprised to hear Peter sound so oriental. The American way was to make excuses, to stay and argue.

Ain't spacetime a bitch," said Ram. "Noted," said the expendable. "Nineteen times.

Bingwen didn't argue. What good would it do? When adults became defiant in public, no amount of evidence, however irrefutable, would make them change their minds.

And no matter how well we think we know people, the fact is we're all strangers in the end.

They feel very stupid and strange, the things going through your mind. You're making us very tired, with all your thinking of stupid imaginary impossible things.

Those two people in the back of the boat, he felt kind of sorry for them. They still lived in the drowned city, they belonged down there, and the fact that they couldn't go there broke their hearts. But not Deaver. His city wasn't even built yet. His city was tomorrow.

No, he told himself honestly. I've never had real friends before. This is what it feels like. This is why people will sacrifice so many accomplishments in order to stay with their friends instead of their tasks. But I have these friends because I stayed with my task. So instead of dragging each other down, we're building each other up. We're not just good friends, we're friends who do each other good.

Peregrinos viajeros hacia el altar de la inteligencia

Ender was a destroyer, but what he destroyed was illusion, and the illusion had to die.

The root of magic is love, the trunk is service.

There is only try and try again, until you can persuade the world to work according to your new plan for it. ... Everything has a mind of its own and follows the laws it already understands.

are more to a woman than any man can be. We pretend otherwise. We pretend we bear them for him, that we raise them for him. But it's not true. We raise them for themselves. We stay with our men for the children's sake.