It's called civilization. Women invented it, and every time you men blow it all to bits, we just invent it again.

Dona Crista laughed a bit. "Oh, Pip, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice." I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.

I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt.

I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.

The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.

I stole their future from them; I can only being to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past.

Ender stepped under the water and rinsed himself, took the sweat of combat and let it run down the drain. All gone, except they recycled it and we'll be drinking Bonzo's blood water in the morning. All the life gone out of it, but his blood just the same, his blood and my sweat, washed down in their stupidity or cruelty or whatever it was that made them let it happen.