Quotes from Orson Scott Card

there some great wisdom to be gained by calibrating exactly how worthless a mind I have?

Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.

I'll tell you something. If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.

It would be so much easier if I weren't determined to do what's best for everybody. Whoever said virtue was its own reward was full of crap.

Happiness can depend as easily on useless things as in useful ones.

Ambition leads you to great risk. But ambition never leads you to certain destruction." "Unless you're a fool.

Wasn't that the definition of adulthood? That you wanted one thing, but did another because you knew what was right and good, and wanted to do the right and the good more than you wanted to do what you wanted.

The war on apathy moved much slower than real wars fought on the ground.

En el momento en que entiendo verdaderamente a mi enemigo, en el momento en que le entiendo lo suficientemente bien como para derrotarle, entonces, en ese preciso instante, también le quiero. Creo que es imposible entender realmente a alguien, saber lo que quere, saber lo que cree, y no amarle como se ama a sí mismo.

You really are playing God." "I most certainly am not playing.

History is an omelet. The eggs are already broken.

life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them.

Those are experiences that have shaped you. Hard experiences. Painful even. But you are who you are because of them." Other

Yet even the most hackneyed, shopworn science fiction or fantasy tale will feel startling and fresh to a naive reader who doesn't know the milieu is just like the one used in a thousand other stories.

Bishop Peregrino smiled grimly, the way a duelist might salute a worthy opponent.

Perhaps someday, confronted by the consequences of your own actions, you might change, but I doubt it. Few who are captured by such a powerful story are ever able to win free of it.

raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off.

Yes," said Ender. "He's one of your flock, isn't he? So leave the ninety-nine, shepherd, and come with us to save the one that's lost.

Abra said nothing at all. He didn't even wink at Po. He just kept his face exactly as blank as Po's. It was the Mayan way of laughing at somebody right in front of them, without being rude or starting a fight.

with than the person who actually lived.

The ship was there. It was there, and still there, unmoving, unchanged. And then it was gone.

It's also like being born," said Ender. "As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes.

long stories in the same series (as well as a couple of stabs at mainstream stories).

Here is the meaning of life: ...to make babies with her, with him, or to find them some other way, but then to raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off. (Anton)