Orson Scott Card citations

Page 4

“Lanik :
- Je suis en train de perdre Saranna.
L'Homee-qui-sais-tout :
- C'est très bien. Peresonne ne doit posséder quelqu'un d'autre.”

“En terme de reproduction, un mâle fait de son mieux s'il voyage et copule au maximum.”

“Même si le libre arbitre n'existe pas, nous devons nous comporter les uns envers les autres comme si le libre arbitre existait afin de pouvoir vivre en société.”

“Les sages ne sont pas sages parce qu'ils ne commettent jamais d'erreurs. Ils sont sages parce qu'ils corrigent leurs erreurs dès qu'ils les reconnaissent.”

“C'est la vie. Ça fait mal, c'est sale, mais c'est tellement bon.”

“La vie et encore assez douce pour nous… même si nous savons que cela ne tardera pas. Et cela aussi sera un bien. Même la mort sera un bien, je pense, non parce qu’elle mettra fin aux anciennes amertumes, mais parce qu’à mon avis elle sera la dernière des aigres saveurs qui m’ont signalé que j’étais en vie.
Par-dessous toutes choses je continue d’entendre le cri de la terre, mais il n’affecte plus ce que je vois et ce que je fais. Au contraire, il rehausse mes plaisirs, car le lever du soleil est plus éclatant à couse des sombres gouffres au fond de moi, et la sourire de Saranna est plus chaleureux à cause de la cruauté que j’ai connue, et les soins que je prodigue aux gens et aux animaux ont plus de valeur à cause des tueries que j’ai commises.”

“Il eut un surprenant sourire, puis il me prit dans ses bras et me dit : « Je ne pensais que tu m’avais trahi la dernière fois que tu as parti. Je ne comprenais pas, Lanik. Je pensais que si je te faisais confiance, cela signifie que tu agirais toujours comme je le voulais…”

“Mais peu importe qu’il y ait ou non des grands desseins extérieurs à moi. Mon seul espoir a été ceci : discerner ce qui pouvait être accompli, croire que c’était possible, et ensuite mettre tout en œuvre pour exécuter, à n’importe quel prix. Et quand une vie s’achève comme la mienne s’achèvera, nul ne peut me persuader que le prix ne valait pas d’être payé en échange de ce que j’ai reçu”

“In order to learn, one must change one's mind.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Into the the air, into the earth, into the fire, I am with you.”

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

“An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.'

Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.”

“Science Fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees.”

“Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.”

“Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child… Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.”

“We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself a dictator, and died for it.”

“Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.”

“Thank you for this, Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever, I need that now.”

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

“Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.”

“The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.”

“A broken clock is right two times a day.”

“The only way to retrieve a secret, once known, is to replace it with a lie.”

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

“People will always go. Always. They always believe the can make a better life than in the old world.
What the hell, maybe they can.”

“Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.”

“It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?”

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

“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.”

“Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.”

“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.”

“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.”

“All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better—
So why do I hate my life?”

“The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale.”