Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender.

Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.

I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.

And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.

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.

A weak King must be what other Kings have been; a strong King is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed.

...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honour when they applaud the tale you tell.