What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never know why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even know themselves. Nobody understands anybody.
Orson Scott CardAmerica's intellectual community has never been very bright. Or honest. They're all sheep, following whatever the intellectual fashion of the decade happens to be. Demanding that everyone follow their dicta in lockstep. Everyone has to be open-minded and tolerant of the things they believe, but God forbid they should ever concede, even for a moment, that someone who disagrees with them might have some fingerhold of truth.
Orson Scott CardWriterโs block is my unconscious mind telling me that something Iโve just written is either unbelievable or unimportant to me, and I solve it by going back and reinventing some part of what Iโve already written so that when I write it again, it is believable and interesting to me. Then I can go on. Writerโs block is never solved by forcing oneself to โwrite through it,โ because you havenโt solved the problem that caused your unconscious mind to rebel against the story, so it still wonโt work โ for you or for the reader.
Orson Scott Card