Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan.

Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't the will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never cease to exist.

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

Sometimes you have to trust people enough to let them succeed and love them enough to let them fail.

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

I will remember this, thought Ender, when I am defeated. To keep dignity, and give honor where it's due, so that defeat is not disgrace. And I hope I don't have to do it often.

You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren't good old familiar short stories. Novels aren't built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes.