Quotes from Orson Scott Card

The only profit from their sojourn on Earth would be the memory of this mad species, which had somehow become intelligent without ever learning how to understand themselves.

Are there any who can honestly boast, My worshippers obey my good laws, And treat each other kindly, And live simple generous lives?

But how can you be God, if Justice is more powerful than you?" I am his daughter, five hundred generations from him. Shouldn't the children of God learn something in that time? Lared

I'm a mammal," said Bean. "I try to live forever whether I actually want to or not.

You're Greek and I'm Armenian. Of course we need to raise our children to speak Portuguese.

We never hated Grego," said Olhado. "I should have known," said Miro. "I knew he was suffering the worst pain of any of us, but it never occurred to me . . ." "Don't blame yourself," said Ender. "It's the kind of thing that only a stranger can see.

as you look up at these towering mound-people

No matter how well you know what a person has done and what he thought he was doing when he did it and what he now thinks of what he did, it is impossible to be certain of what he will do next. Yet

We're businessmen, Chubs. The moral high ground is wherever we set it.

When you love people, you do whatever it takes to make them happy.

When you don't understand the consequences for your acts, how can you be blamed for them?

His voice was a caress. No, stringer, it was like a hand gripping her hand, steadying her.

You're just Ender in drag, doing his Valentine bit. You come off the stage and there's nothing there, it comes off like makeup and a costume.

Perhaps those who grew up among these people might somehow sublimate their ambition, or perhaps there was something in the racial genotype that suppressed it or replaced it

In Russia you learn patience," said Ivan. "In America you learn action.

If the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There's fruition, Grego. There's the happiness we've already had. The happiness of each moment. The end of our lives, even if there's no forward continuation, no progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn't erase the beginning.

But the sky only seems to be far away from you,' said Master Han, when she told him this. 'Actually it is all around you. You breathe it in and you breathe it out, even when you labor with your hands in the mud.

When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn't yet know that he needs your wisdom, you keep it to yourself. Food only looks good to a hungry man.

This wasn't about killing Bean—that was just a bonus. It was about getting Bean's babies.

Civilization is only a pretense; in the crisis, we become mere apes again, forgetting the rational biped of our pretensions and become instead the hairy primate at the mouth of the cave, screeching at the enemy, wishing it would go away, fingering the heavy stone that we'll use the moment it comes close enough.

That's why I don't want him to take our babies away from me. I must have them all, the way conquerors have had to have this city. I must have them. That is my empire.

I don't indulge in hypotheticals, said Achilles. Except the hypothetical charge that I plan to kill you in your sleep during the voyage back to Earth. Not my accusation, said Achilles. I was quoted in your defense. Your 'defense' is the only reason anyone heard of the accusation, said Ender.

He wasn't preoccupied, he was unoccupied. He had detached himself from the world. And her job was to reconnect him. To bring him back and show him his place in the web of humanity.

And yet they obey and will continue to obey the orders that come to them. As in the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, these soldiers give up their lives, trusting that their commanders are using them well. While we sit safely here in these simulator rooms, playing an elaborate computer game, they are obeying, dying so that all of humankind can live.