From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.

If desire did not dim the brain, nobody would ever get married, drunk, or fat. ~Val

That night Demosthenes published a scathing denunciation of the population limitation laws. People should be allowed to have as many children as they like, and the surplus population should be sent to other worlds, to spread mankind so far across the galaxy that no disaster, no invasion could ever threaten the human race with annihilation. "The most noble title any child can have," Demosthenes wrote, "is Third.

And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

That was interesting, to find that it wasn't hunger that caused children to become bullies on the street. The bulliness was already in the child, and whatever the stakes were, they would find a way to act as they needed to act. … Intelligence and education, which all these children had, apparently didn't make any important difference in human nature.

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

'So if we can we'll kill every last of the buggers, and if they can they'll kill every last one of us. As for me,' said Ender, 'I'm in favor of surviving'.