Orson Scott Card Quotes

Whoop-de-do," said Ram. "What?" "I'm celebrating." "Was that irony or loss of mental function?" asked the expendable. "Was that a rhetorical questions, a bit of humor, or a sign that you are losing confidence in me?" "I have no confidence in you, Ram," said the expendable. "Well, thanks." "You're welcome.

You understand that the piggies are animals, and you no more condemn them for murdering Libo and Pipo than you condemn a cabra for shewing up capim." That's right," said Miro. Ender smiled. "And that's why you'll never learn anything from them. Because you think of them as animals.

If a pig goes upon the threshing-floor, or a field, or a garden, and the owner of the meadow, or the field, or the garden smites it so that it die, he shall give it back to its owner; but if he does not give it back, he becomes a thief.

He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.

The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.

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.

You can’t answer what I said, so you’re going to talk about my saying it.

People love to hear the brag of the local boy, because they want him to be great, but the foreigner must deny that he has any outstanding virtue - this is what will endear him to the locals.

Satanic Verses is a despicable book that could not have been written by a person who wished to behave decently and responsibly.

Darkness bound them closer than light.

I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down.

The only people who think children are carefree are the ones who've forgotten their own childhood.

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war.

He is dangerous, he is beautiful, I could drown in his understanding.

because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.

Quing-Jao: I am a slave to the gods, and I rejoice in it. Jane: A slave who rejoices is a slave indeed.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

Before we are citizens, we are children, and it is as children that we come to understand freedom and authority, liberty and duty.

One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.

If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you.

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender.

The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice.

Nonsense," said Graff. "Ender always has plans within plans.

What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.

I will love you forever, he thought. I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

Come in, Bean. Come in Julian Delphiki, longed-for child of good and loving parents. Come in, kidnapped child, hostage of fate. Come and talk to the Fates, who are playing such clever little games with your life.

It's simple. Nothing exists except in relation to something else.

If you listen very carefully, you can hear the good fairy come in the night and leave our assignment for tomorrow.

Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?

Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.

That is the earth, he thought. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of a hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upwards from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets, and winds, and birds

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

She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell. Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it. And it's delicious.

Evil people naturally assume that you will use that power exactly as they would use it.

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.

Please don't disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet.

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.

I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. WE'RE not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't COMMANDERS, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get crazy.

Does it help if we're so strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome everything in our way no matter what?" asked Wang-mu. "I think those are the pertinent virtues, yes," said Peter. "Then let's do it. That's us in spades.

He’d undone all he could. You can be sorry, and you can be forgiven, but you can’t call back the futures that your bad decisions lost

A broken clock is right two times a day.

Every day people judge all other people. The question is whether they judge wisely.

But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.

It will hurt." said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness.

If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.

It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.