Orson Scott Card: Quotes about thinking

Orson Scott Card is American science fiction novelist. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Orson Scott Card: 1172 quotes16 likes

“Physically plain people are perfectly able to see physical beauty in others, while people who are morally maimed are blind to goodness and decency. They honestly think it doesn't exist.
Oh, they know it exists all right. They just never know which people have it.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

“Folks always seemed to think that as long as they didn’t know about something bad, it wasn’t happening, so whoever told them actually caused it to be true.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 2 “Squirrel and Moose” (p. 33).

“Why did people get so upset when somebody mentioned dying? Did they think that if they didn’t mention it, it would skip a few people and leave them alive forever?”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 54
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), The Polish Boy

“I think that a good person can sometimes do wrong out of ignorance or weakness or wrong thinking, but when hard times come, the goodness wins out after all. And a bad person can often seem good and trustworthy for a long time, but when hard times come, the evil in him gets revealed.”

Orson Scott Card

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

“That’s how it goes within a family. You think you know each other so well, and so you don’t bother hardly getting to know each other at all.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Prentice Alvin (1989), Chapter 2.

“Frozen, right? But to others, it looks like you're calm as could be. That's why some of the others tease you so mercilessly sometimes. They think you're made of stone, and they want to break in and touch the human feelings. They just don't know that when you seem most stony, that's when you're the most frightened and breakable.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

“Don’t you think it’s ironic that you have no idea what you’re supposed to do,” said Verily, “and yet so many people have gone to so much trouble to prevent you from doing it?”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 3.

“Calvin, what kind of trouble are you planning to make?”
“No trouble at all,” said Calvin, annoyed. “Why do you think I want to cause trouble?”

Orson Scott Card

“Because you are awake.”
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 4.

“How could you disguise your own thoughts so even you didn't know what you were thinking?”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

“He hated the way they thought. He hated the way they didn't think. It was hard to imagine which of them he hated more.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

“Everybody thinks they want to see the truth,” said Tenkswa-Tawa. “That’s one of the lies we tell ourselves.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 16 “Labor” (p. 307).

“That reminded John Paul of what Andrew had said when he was teaching him to play chess. “You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it’s all going to lead.” John Paul understood the principle as soon as Andrew explained it. But he stopped playing chess anyway, because he didn’t care what happened to little plastic figures on a board of sixty-four squares.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 53
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), The Polish Boy

“Living with a god is not what it's cracked up to be. They think their women should be grateful just to have them around.”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Enchantment (1999)

“Why is doubt the one thing we're never skeptical of? We question other peoples' beliefs, and the more sure they are the more we doubt them. But it never occurs to us to doubt our own doubt. Question our own questions. We think our questions are answers.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

“I think that I say those things that make people so angry, not because I really mean them, but because I simply thought of a clever way to say them. It's a kind of art, to think of the perfect way to say an idea, and when you think of it then you have to say it, because words don't exist until you say them."
"A pretty feeble kind of art, Nyef, and I say you should give it up before it gets you killed.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

“She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.”

Orson Scott Card Songmaster

Songmaster (1979)

“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)

“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.

“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.

““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.