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Orson Scott Card Quotes
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Orson Scott Card is an American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist, and columnist. He writes in several genres but is known best for science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years. A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in late October 2013 in Europe and on November 1, 2013, in North America.

Card is a professor of English at Southern Virginia University, has written two books on creative writing, hosts writing bootcamps and workshops, and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. A great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, Card is a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . In addition to producing a large body of fiction works, he has also offered political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing.

He has written under a number of pseudonyms, including Frederick Bliss, Brian Green, P.Q. Gump, Dinah Kirkham, Scott Richards, and Byron Walley.

✵ 24. August 1951
Orson Scott Card photo
Orson Scott Card: 586   quotes 13   likes

Orson Scott Card Quotes

“I have no secret thoughts… Or rather, they're not secret because I've withheld them — if they're unknown, it's because no one asked.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Secret

“Even the good she found in him was really the goodness she had put in him, the goodness he had put on himself as a disguise in order to get her to marry him.”

Orson Scott Card book Lost Boys

Lost Boys (1992)

“I acted like a human male. When I act like a human male it doesn't make me less human, it just makes me less female.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

“Today, I saw a spark of decency. Let's blow on that spark and give it fuel.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

“He was growing up. Soon he would be a man. He wondered what that would mean. Surely he could not have more required of him as an adult that had been required of him as a child. There could not be more.”

Orson Scott Card Songmaster

Songmaster (1979)

“What does it matter if, by following my heart, I also fulfill someone else’s plan?”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 100
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Teacher's Pest

Heart

“Wanting to is the whole lesson; all the rest is practice.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

“I’ve never seen a soft heart turn hard,” said Taleswapper. “At least not without good reason.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 15.

Heart

“Show him who I am, so he will pity me instead of fearing me. And then we can turn pity into compassion, and compassion into understanding, and understanding into affection, and affection into love, and love into life, the life of our children, the life of the new self we will become together.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

Love , Life , Children , Fear

“I’m a terrible salesman,” he finally said. “I always tell the truth about what I’m selling, and then nobody buys it.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 12 “Springfield” (p. 250).

Truth

“Once he had been so formidable that he was surrounded by enemies. Now even his enemies has lost interest in him. What clearer sign of failure could you find than that?”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 1 “Nueva Barcelona” (p. 19).

Failure

“I don't care how loyal you think you're going to be, Dink. It's not in you. You're a brat and you always will be. So admit what a lousy follower you are, and go ahead and LEAD.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Petra Arkanian Delphiki.
Ender's Game series, Shadow of the Giant (2005)

Thinking

“Verily wondered what the man could have the audacity to say, in the face of such evidence—what whining, sniveling complaint or protest he might utter.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 14.

“The great forces of history were real, after a fashion. But when you examined them closely, those great forces always came down to the dreams and hungers and judgments of individuals. The choices they made were real. They mattered.”

Orson Scott Card

"Atlantis," from Keeper of Dreams (2008).

Hunger , Dreams , History , Fashion

“I'm passing through the world invisibly. Even when people see or speak to me it's as if I didn't exist, as if I had no right to exist. I tread across their lands and they don't see me. I act and act and act and nothing makes any difference in the world. But they touch me.”

Orson Scott Card

Treason (1988)

People , World

“And then he realized that he could never make anything out of the Unmaker, could never make the Unmaker do or be anything because it was only Undoing and Unbeing. It wasn’t the Unmaker he needed to call to, it was all the living things around him, the trees, the grass, the earth, the air itself. It was the greensong that he needed to restore.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Prentice Alvin (1989), Chapter 9.

Tree , Grass

“Nafai knew the rule: when a man acts like a child, he's boyish, and everyone's delighted; when a boy acts the same way, he's childish, and everyone tells him to be a man.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

Way , Boy

“You think this because you are a nasty person by nature, Calvin, and you don’t understand nice people. To you, the end of existence is to control things, and so you will never build anything, but rather will try to take control of what is already in existence. Your brother, though, is by nature a Maker, as you explain it; therefore he cares nothing about who rules, but only about what exists.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 17.

People , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“As he had so many times before, Taleswapper addressed a few silent words to God, which always came down to this question: Why do you put us to so much trouble, when it all comes to naught in the end?…And, as usual, God had nothing much to say to Taleswapper when his questioning was done.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 15.

God , Question , Time

“There's some people who do things so bad it tears the fabric of the world, and then there's some people so sweet and good that they can feel it when the world gets torn. They see things, they know things, only they're so good and pure that they don't understand what it is that they're seeing.”

Orson Scott Card book Lost Boys

Lost Boys (1992)

People , World , Feeling , Understanding

“It is the essence of dignity to pretend to desire what you cannot prevent.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 9 “Expeditions” (p. 166).

“The most evil creatures don’t desire the destruction of everything—they only desire to exploit it for themselves.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 10.

Evil

“Boys always argued as if they knew then had the forces of logic on their side, even when they were being completely irrational.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Boy

“To me, the truth is what actually happened. Yet it is impossible to know anything approaching the whole truth about past events. Even the people living them could not possibly understand. That truth is always out of reach.”

Orson Scott Card book Saints

Saints (1983)

People , Truth , Understanding , Past

“Such fools they were in Battle School, to let so few girls in. It left the boys completely helpless against a woman when they returned to Earth.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Virlomi.
Ender's Game series, Shadow of the Giant (2005)

School , Fools , Girl , Boy

“To say what's in their hearts, regardless of shame. It doesn't change what they feel, what they want. It just helps… loosen them up.”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Enchantment (1999)

Feeling , Change , Help , Heart

“Arthur had heard Peggy say that she didn’t wish for more comfortable furniture, because if the chairs were softer, company would be inclined to stay longer.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 17 “Foundation” (p. 334).

““What kind of stupid tale is that, when we just have to look at each other to know it isn’t true?”
“It has problems, I admit.””

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 10.

Stupidity , Problem

“The vision of the gods without the power of the gods. What a terrible gift.A glorious gift.”

Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)

God

“Law can change how people behave when others are watching — that's all.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

People , Law , Change

““Part of the test,” said Sillain, “is seeing how well you obey orders.”
“Then I fail,” said John Paul.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 33
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), The Polish Boy

Parting

“Alvin had met true evil in his life, but he still persisted in thinking it was awful rare, and the word was bandied about too much by those who didn’t understand what real badness was.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 10.

Life , Understanding , Thinking , Evil

“God had answered her prayer, not with the thing she asked for, but rather the thing she wanted most in her heart.”

Orson Scott Card book Stone Tables

Stone Tables (1997)

God , Heart

“When he loved his bride it was not a queen he loved, but rather the girl as she might have been if she had not been destroyed in her childhood.”

Orson Scott Card Hart's Hope

Hart's Hope (1983)

Love , Girl , Childhood

““This is today’s puzzle,” he said. “If the act of denial can be taken as proof of the crime, how can an innocent man defend himself?”
The tithingmen caught him by the arms. “Come along now, Mr. Emerson, and don’t go trying any philosophy on us.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Waldo. “Philosophy would be wasted against such sturdy-headed men as you.”
“Glad you know it,” said the tithingman proudly. “Wouldn’t want you thinking we weren’t true Christians.””

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 9.

Men , Dreams , Thinking

“I do matter, and despising me was the gravest error of their lives.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

Error

“They won't be required to sacrifice anything in order to belong to your assembly. A religion that is all sweetness, but no light; all form, but no substance; all tradition, but no precept.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Religion , Light

“You are not what you seem.
So many people have said that that I'm beginning to think that's precisely how I do seem. What is it I seem to be that you have now discovered that I'm not?”

Orson Scott Card

Treason (1988)

People , Thinking

“I own the whole world, and folks haven’t been keeping up too well on the payments.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 15.

World

“You can afford me,” said Jane. “I’m cheap and you’re rich.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 198
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Investment Counselor

“Only a fool can't be fooled.”

Orson Scott Card Songmaster

Songmaster (1979)

Fools

“I believe in everything that seems true to me right now. I just refuse to be surprised when some of those things I believe in now turn out to be false later.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Falseness

“There's a sort of rage a man feels when he's been deceived where he most trusted. It compares to no other anger.”

Orson Scott Card

Treason (1988)

Feeling , Rage , Anger

“May the day when you need courage never come.
Even as she said it, though, she knew the day would come.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

Courage

“Deep inside himself, in a place he didn't often go, where he kept the things he didn't like to think about but dared not forget, he knew that [she] was still alive somewhere, and somehow she was watching what he did, or at least looking in on him from time to time.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Treasure Box (1996)

Thinking , Time , Forgetting

“This is what I want to do forever, each one thought. Rise in the morning, come to the mill, and work all day with him beside me. Never mind that the wish was impossible. Never mind that they might never see each other again, once the boy left for his apprenticeship back in the place of his birth. That only added to the sweetness of the moment, which would soon become a memory, would soon become a dream.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 15 (closing words).

Dreams , Boy , Birth , Memory