Orson Scott Card citations

Page 6

“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”

“I have hope for you, if only because you're the only one left to hope for.”

“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.”

“Bonzo, he pre-cise. He so careful, he piss on a plate and never splash.”

“One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

“Let me be loved like that, by a man who will not replace me with concubines when I'm old and ugly. Let me be loved by a man who loves God more than me.”

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

“Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.”

“If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you.”

“Ender understood more than she said. Manipulation of gravity was one thing; deception by the officers was another; but the most important message was this: the adults are the enemy, not the other armies. They do not tell us the truth.”

“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.”

“You who speak languages, you are such liars.”

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a lie.” “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

“But I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind. Are we absolutely sure that we ought to win this war?”

“But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.”

“He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.”

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things.”

“If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.”

“I looked for perfection, and I found something better.”

“The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet.”

“A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.”

“Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for belonging.”

“Intellectual understanding does not always bring visceral belief.”

“Only stupid men trying to seem smart need to be with dumb women. Only weak men trying to look strong are attracted to compliant women.”

“With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.”

“If words can be lethal weapons, I must provide them with an arsenal.”

“If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine.

And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.”

“I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm watching. But I'm free. Because it's Ender's game.”

“… the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns being the keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept.”

“My father always said that government is like watching another man piss in your boot. Someone feels better but it certainly isn’t you.”