Quotes About Understanding

It's about me, or people wouldn't be so anxious to keep me from knowing about it. The absence of information is information. ~ Ender

Compassion is what you're good at. I'm better at complex searches through organized data structures.

For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire.

Peter had even named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselves, and bully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best about themselves, and flatter them.

No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.

We know everything we knew that was worth knowing, that's a crucial distinction.

Could you possibly be a little more incoherent? asked Olivenko. There are bits of this I'm almost understanding, and I'm sure that's not what you have in mind.

That was Ender's gift to us, to free us from the illusion that any one explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, always more to learn.

The piggies were not to be disturbed-

It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

I'm not one to despise other people for their sins. I haven't found one yet, that I didn't say to myself, I've done worse than this.

So he believed. Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Then he was done. He pulled away, rolled onto his back. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're welcome," she said. She believed in answering what people meant, not what they said.

He could just look at people and listen to them and suddenly he'd know things about them.

Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.

I know you know, and you know that I know that you know. It spirals on from there, so let's just assume the dot dot dot.

Loneliness is at the heart of Ender's Game, and the reason it works so well is because it carries with it the firm assurance that even though Ender never feels himself to belong,the reader knows he does belong, that he is the ultimate insider even though he stands outside.

You underestimate yourself.

See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet.

Never mock a tender heart.

If you could make them feel as you can make me feel, then perhaps they could forgive you.

Isn't it possible, he wondered, for one person to love another without trying to own each other? Or is that buried so deep in our genes that we can never get it out? Territoriality. My wife. My friend. My lover.

We are like you; the thought pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again. We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams. How were we to know? We could live with you in peace. Believe us, believe us, believe us.