Orson Scott Card: Goodness

“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.”

“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.”

“When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn't yet know that he needs your wisdom you keep it to yourself. Food only looks good to a hungry man.”

“Being young is an 18 year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”

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

“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.”

“No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.”

“We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.”

“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.”

“It's the most charming thing about humans. You are all so sure that the lesser animals are bleeding with envy because they didn't have the good fortune to be born Homo sapiens.”

“When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish… Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.”

“Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.”

“I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

“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.”

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things.”

“There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you.”

“You take responsibility for us all. Without ever waiting to be told.
So do all good people. That's what it means to be a good person.”

““Am I hired?”
“There is no legal way you can get me out of paying that much of my taxes.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Wiggin. The tax laws are designed to trick people into paying more than they have to. That way the rich who are in the know get to take advantage of drastic tax breaks, while those who don’t have such good connections and haven’t yet found an accountant who does are tricked into paying ludicrously higher amounts.””

“I want to see the king.
Wonderful. I'm glad for you.
Why are you so glad?
Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant.”