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.

Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be.

I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away--

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth." -Taleswapper

This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.

The Lord took twice the time making thee, Alvin Smith, cause it took that long to put the mischief in.