Orson Scott Card Quotes

Nobodys life ever goes according to plan. So why do we keep on planning? Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become. And fail. I don't say 'fail'. I saw we aim and miss. But we still hit something.

For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.

You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.

Sister Carlotta, I'm on a leave of absence right now. That means I've been sacked, in case you don't understand how the I.F. handles these things.” "Sacked! A miscarriage of justice. You ought to be shot.

I have never resisted the lord in my life, and I never will. But I'm not so hungry for dialogue with him that I have to make up his part as well as my own.

Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.

You frighten me, when you say there isn't time." "I don't see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia." "But it keeps not ending." "So far, so good.

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.

All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better— So why do I hate my life?

Ah, I am the judge of dreams, and you are the judge of love. Well, I find you guilty of dreaming good dreams, and sentence you to a lifetime of working and suffering for the sake of your dreams. I only hope that someday you won't declare me innocent of the crime of loving you.

I'm crazy," said Ender. "But I think I'm OK.

My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer.

Apparently the Dutch now prided themselves on being better at queues than the English, which was absurd, because standing cheerfully in line was the English national sport.

I doubt that America will come to Europe again. You'll be on your own against militant Islam.

Withholding a decision is a decision.

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.

It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.

Oh no, real life is escape. The great terrors, the horrors--we hope--of your life come from reading fiction.

The great forces of history were real, after a fashion. But when you examined them closely, those great forces always came down to the dreams and hungers and judgments of individuals.

The best thing about my job, though, is stopping at the end of the day and rejoining the human universe.

I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.

There is a myth that homosexuals are 'born that way,' and we are pounded with this idea so thoroughly that many people think that somebody, somewhere, must have proved it.

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.

He kissed her and killed her then dumped her body in the river.

Do the gods of different nations talk to each other?...Is there some annual get-together where they compare each other's worshippers? Mine will bow their faces to the floor and trace woodgrain lines for me, says one. Mine will sacrifice animals, says another. Mine will kill anyone who insults me, says a third. Here is the question I think of most often: "Are there any who can honestly boast, My worshippers obey my good laws, and treat each other kindly, and live simple generous lives?

Sometimes happiness consists of finding the right balance of misery.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down.

The only teacher that's worth anything to you is your enemy.

The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.

Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.

It's easy to manipulate your children when they're absolutely sure you're stupid.

This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?" "I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?" "Yes," she said. "That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours.

Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.

But Father has also taught him: Treat a man as if he had a fine reputation to protect, and he will usually endeavor to deserve it.

The worst thing about the fantasies of the mentally ill is that they're so damned consistent. They never let up. They never give you any rest.

And above all, what does being liberal have to do with opposing, or, uh, supporting the war against terror? Our enemies in the war against terror are so anti-liberal that you would think it would be liberals leaping to protect the world from these monstrous ideologies.

Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.

Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.

Make friends. Be a leader. Kiss butts if you have to, but if the other guys despise you-you know what I mean?

I buy way too many books.

Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.

Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter.

I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first. - Ender

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth." -Taleswapper

The lies we live will always be confessed in the stories that we tell.

The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life. But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong — for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.

I always tell the truth about what I’m selling, and then nobody buys it.

I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn-that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you're a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale.