To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you.

The only teacher that's worth anything to you is your enemy.

If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.

Peace. That's what salaam means. Peace unto you." The words brought forth an echo from Ender's memory. His mother's voice reading to him softly, when he was very young. ... The kiss, the word, the peace were with him still. I am only what I remember, and Alai is my friend in a memory so intense that they can't tear him out. Like Valentine, the strongest memory of all.

He jumped at the Giants face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant's eye.

I have never resisted the lord in my life, and I never will. But I'm not so hungry for dialogue with him that I have to make up his part as well as my own.

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.