Orson Scott Card Quotes

“So it's Mr. Wiggin and Who The Hell Are You.'

'About right,' Bean replied.”

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

“I love you Ender. More than ever. No matter what you decide.”

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”

“It occurred to me that if my friends were loathsome, perhaps I needed to learn from my enemies.”

“the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.”

“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.”

“Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.”

“Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.”

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things.”

“We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.”

“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.”

“I'm crazy," said Ender. "But I think I'm OK.”

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

“I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself.”

“If you could stop the suffering and dying, and didn't stop it, then you are guilty. It is your fault.
We kill no one. We do not let them kill us. We have nothing to do with them.”

“There's always hope… even when there isn't faith. And sometimes, without hope or faith, there must be charity.”

“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.”

“Ethan Wyeth: I hope you're thirsty."
Gideon Wyeth:"Why?"
Ethan: "Cause your dumb and ugly, but I can do something about thirsty.”

“I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first.
- Ender”

“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”

“It's called civilization. Women invented it, and every time you men blow it all to bits, we just invent it again.”

“No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the same person that I am today.”

“Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.”

“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.”

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

“Early to bed and early to rise," Mazer intoned, "makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.”

“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.”

“Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins—thoroughly.”

“I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.”

“You're a monster.
Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?
No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.”

“I also remembered that you were beautiful."
"Memory does play tricks on us."
"No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore.”

“Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.”

“Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.”

“So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.”

“In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.'
What is it then?'
It is the only way a powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The wish is not to die, but to hide.”

“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.”

“She worked her toes into the sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of silicon against the tender flesh between her toes. That's life. It hurts, it's dirty, and it feels very, very good.”

“Love is finding that the things you like best about yourself are not in you at all, but in the person who completes you”

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

“Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.”

“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.”

“He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him.”

“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 know how writers are… they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.”

“We have to go. I'm almost happy here.”

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”

“Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies.”

“This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?"

"I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?"

"Yes," she said.

"That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours.”

“Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.”

“I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.”

“The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.”

“We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all the incompleteness. We turn to fiction to have an author assure us that it means something.”

“We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake."

"A habit.”

“My needs are simple and few, thought Valentine. Food. Clothing. A comfortable place to sleep. And.

But of course a world with no idiots would be lonely. If she herself were even allowed there.”

“Madness, and then illumination.”

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

“As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes”

“I'm putting you in Dink Meeker's toon. From now on, as far as you're concerned, Dink Meeker is God."
"Then who are you?"
"The personnel officer who hired God.”

“All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe.”

“For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.”

“Since when do you have to tell the enemy when he has won”

“I will never hurt you.
I will always help you.
If you are hungry
Ill give you my food.
If you are frightened
I am your friend.
I love you now.
And love does not end.”

“Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgment.”