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Be Proud, Bonito, Pretty Boy. You Can Go Home And Tell Your Father, Yes, I Beat Up Ender Wiggin, Who Was Barely Ten Years Old, And I Was Thirteen. And I Had Only Six Of My Friends To Help Me, And Somehow We Managed To Defeat Him, Even Though He Was Naked And Wet And Alone--ender Wiggin Is So Dangerous And Terrifying It Was All We Could Do Not To Bring Two Hundred.

-Orson Scott Card

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Be Proud, Bonito, Pretty

Orson Scott Card

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Be Proud, Bonito, Pretty Boy. You Can Go Home And Tell Your Father, Yes, I Beat Up Ender Wiggin, Who Was Barely Ten Years Old, And I Was Thirteen. And I Had Only Six Of My Friends To Help Me, And Somehow We Managed To Defeat Him, Even Though He Was Naked And Wet And Alone--ender Wiggin Is So Dangerous And Terrifying It Was All We Could Do Not To Bring Two Hundred.

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Remember, The Enemy's Gate Is Down.

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.

Writer’s Block Is My Unconscious Mind Telling Me That Something I’ve Just Written Is Either Unbelievable Or Unimportant To Me, And I Solve It By Going Back And Reinventing Some Part Of What I’ve Already Written So That When I Write It Again, It Is Believable And Interesting To Me. Then I Can Go On. Writer’s Block Is Never Solved By Forcing Oneself To “write Through It,” Because You Haven’t Solved The Problem That Caused Your Unconscious Mind To Rebel Against The Story, So It Still Won’t Work – For You Or For The Reader.

We Don't Admit It To Ourselves, Not Until The Very Moment Of Death, But In That Moment, We See All Life Before Us And We Understand How We Chose, Every Day Of Our Lives, The Manner Of Our Death.

I Always Tell What I Believe. Whether It's True, I'm No More Sure Than Any Man.

That Is The Earth, He Thought. Not A Globe Thousands Of Kilometers Around, But A Forest With A Shining Lake, A House Hidden At The Crest Of A Hill, High In The Trees, A Grassy Slope Leading Upwards From The Water, Fish Leaping And Birds Strafing To Take The Bugs That Lived At The Border Between Water And Sky. Earth Was The Constant Noise Of Crickets, And Winds, And Birds

Of Course, I Also Hear From Critics Who Detest What I Do, And While Sometimes I Feel Rather Proud Of Having Made Various The Loathsome People Or Groups Angry, At Other Times I Wonder Why I Put Up With Such Grief.

Fiction, Because It Is Not About Somebody Who Actually Lived In The Real World, Always Has The Possibility Of Being About Oneself.

Laws Against Homosexual Behavior Should Remain On The Books.

The Lies We Live Will Always Be Confessed In The Stories That We Tell.

Debased Men, But They All Had Something In Common: They Showed A Keen Regard For Virtue, And Tried To Dress Themselves In That Costume. Hypocrisy, For All Its Bad Reputation, At Least Showed A Decent Respect For Goodness.

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.

God, Our Genes, Our Environment, Or Some Stupid Programmer Keying In Code At An Ancient Terminal - There's No Way Free Will Can Ever Exist If We As Individuals Are The Result Of Some External Cause.

I Learned To Separate The Story From The Writing, Probably The Most Important Thing That Any Storyteller Has To Learn-that There Are A Thousand Right Ways To Tell A Story, And Ten Million Wrong Ones, And You're A Lot More Likely To Find One Of The Latter Than The Former Your First Time Through The Tale.

You Understand That The Piggies Are Animals, And You No More Condemn Them For Murdering Libo And Pipo Than You Condemn A Cabra For Shewing Up Capim." That's Right," Said Miro. Ender Smiled. "and That's Why You'll Never Learn Anything From Them. Because You Think Of Them As Animals.

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

The Maker Is The One Who Is Part Of What He Makes.

In Creating The Strange Milieu In Which Your Story Takes Place, You Must First Understand As Well As You Possibly Can The Familiar Milieu In Which Your Own Life Is Taking Place. Until You Have Examined And Comprehended The World Around You, You Can't Possibly Create A Complex And Believable Imaginary World.

Oh, Val," Said Father. "all You Have To Do Is Live Your Life, And Everyone Around You Will Be Happier." "no Greatness, Then." "val," Said Mother, "goodness Trumps Greatness Any Day." "not In The History Books," Said Valentine. "then The Wrong People Are Writing History, Aren't They?" Said Father.

Nature Can't Evolve A Species That Hasn't The Will To Survive. Individuals Might Be Bred To Sacrifice Themselves, But The Race As A Whole Can Never Cease To Exist.

Will To Survive

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.

Sickness And Healing Are In Every Heart; Death And Deliverance In Every Hand.

Everybody Dies. What Matters Is What You Do Between Now And When It Happens To You.

You're A Monster. Thanks. Does This Mean I Get A Raise? No, Just A Medal. The Budget Isn't Inexhaustable.

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.

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.

You Frighten Me, When You Say There Isn't Time." "i Don't See Why. Christians Have Been Expecting The Imminent End Of The World For Millennia." "but It Keeps Not Ending." "so Far, So Good.

I Have Never Resisted The Lord In My Life, And I Never Will. But I'm Not So Hungry For Dialogue With Him That I Have To Make Up His Part As Well As My Own.

Knowing Something May Be A Terrible Burden To Bear, But It Holds No Danger To Them As Aren't Afraid Of Truth.

At First He Thought He Felt Bad Because He Was Afraid Of Leading An Army, But It Wasn't True. He Knew He'd Make A Good Commander. He Felt Himself Wanting To Cry. He Hadn't Cried Since The First Few Days Of Homesickness After He Got Here. He Tried To Put A Name On The Feeling That Put A Lump In His Throat And Made Him Sob Silently, However Much He Tried To Hold It Down. He Bit Down On His Hand To Stop The Feeling, To Replace It With Pain. It Didn't Help.

I'm Not Stupid!" In Bean's Experience, That Was A Sentence Never Uttered Except To Prove Its Own Inaccuracy.

Come In, Bean. Come In Julian Delphiki, Longed-for Child Of Good And Loving Parents. Come In, Kidnapped Child, Hostage Of Fate. Come And Talk To The Fates, Who Are Playing Such Clever Little Games With Your Life.

Who Would I Be, If Other Good Souls Did Not Make Up For My Shortcomings?

I'm Neutral On Lying, Seeing As How There's Times When The Truth Just Hurts People.

The Story Itself, The True Story, Is The One That The Audience Members Create In Their Minds, Guided And Shaped By My Text, But Then Transformed, Elucidated, Expanded, Edited, And Clarified By Their Own Experience, Their Own Desires, Their Own Hopes And Fears.

I Fell Into Playwriting Accidentally, Took Some Classes In It, And Also Took Creative Writing Classes, But I Really Didn't Expect It To Be A Career Because I Didn't Believe There Was A Way To Make Money As A Playwright Without Being Lucky And I Didn't Feel Particularly Lucky.

How Clever Of Me. I Have Found Such A Pathway Into Hell That I Can Never Get Back Out.

You Were Faster Than Me. Better Than Me. I Was Too Old And Cautious. Any Decent Person Who Knos Waht Warfare Is Can Never Go Into Battle With A Whole Heart. But You Didn't Know. We Made Sure Youo Didn't Know. You Were Reckless And Brilliant And Young. It's Waht You Were Born For.

He Could See Bonzo's Anger Growing Hot. Hot Anger Was Bad. Ender's Anger Was Cold, And He Could Use It. Bonzo's Was Hot, And So It Used Him.

Valentine Had Long Ago Observed That In A Society That Expected Chastity And Fidelity, Like Lusitania, The Adolescents Who Controlled And Channeled Their Youthful Passions Were The Ones Who Grew Up To Be Both Strong And Civilized. Adolescents In Such A Community Who Were Either Too Weak To Control Themselves Or Too Contemptuous Of Society's Norms To Try Usually Ended Up Being Either Sheep Or Wolves- Either Mindless Members Of The Herd Or Predators Who Took What They Could And Gave Nothing.

He Is Dangerous, He Is Beautiful, I Could Drown In His Understanding.

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.

So You Love Me," Said Petra Softly When The Kiss Ended. I'm A Raging Mass Of Hormones Thet I'm Too Young To Understand," Said Bean. "you're A Female Of A Closely Related Species. According To All The Best Primatologists, I Really Have No Choice." That's Nice," She Said.

Others Find Humanity By Looking In Their Own Hearts. Only Lost Souls Need To Search For It Outside Themselves.

'i Could Kill You Like This,' Peter Whispered. 'just Press And Press Until You're Dead'.

Today, Mr. Darcy Is A Vampire.

O My Son Absalom,' Bean Said Softly, Knowing For The First Time The Kind Of Anguish That Could Tear Such Words From A Man’s Mouth. 'my Son, My Son Absalom. Would God I Could Die For Thee, O Absalom, My Son. My Sons!

There's No Need To Legalize Gay Marriage. I Have Plenty Of Gay Friends Who Are Committed Couples; Some Of Them Call Themselves Married, Some Don't, But Their Friends Treat Them As Married. Anybody Who Doesn't Like It Just Doesn't Hang Out With Them.

Working Is Hard And Distracts From Having Fun.

I've Learned Much, Father, And This Above All: That No Station In Life Is Above Any Other, If It's Occupied By Someone With A Good Heart.

You're Like, Both Like, Alexander The Great.' We Can't Both Be Alexander.' Well Sometimes I Think You're Two Side Of The Same Coin, And I'm The Metal In Between.

There Were Crimes And Quarrels, Alongside Kindness And Cooperation; There Were People Who Loved Each Other And People Who Did Not; It Was A Human World.

Civilisation Is Only A Pretense. In Crisis We Have Become Mere Apes Again, Forgetting The Rational Biped Of Our Pretensions And Instead Becoming The Hairy Primate At The Mouth Of The Cave, Screeching At The Enemy Wishing It Would Go Away, Fingering The Heavy Stone We Will Use The Moment It Comes Close Enough

The Opposite Of The Happy Ending Is Not Actually The Sad Ending-the Sad Ending Is Sometimes The Happy Ending. The Opposite Of The Happy Ending Is Actually The Unsatisfying Ending.

Be Proud, Bonito, Pretty Boy. You Can Go Home And Tell Your Father, Yes, I Beat Up Ender Wiggin, Who Was Barely Ten Years Old, And I Was Thirteen. And I Had Only Six Of My Friends To Help Me, And Somehow We Managed To Defeat Him, Even Though He Was Naked And Wet And Alone--ender Wiggin Is So Dangerous And Terrifying It Was All We Could Do Not To Bring Two Hundred.

If The Church Has No The Authority To Tell Its Members That They May Not Engage In Homosexual Practices, Then It Has No Authority At All. And If We Accept The Argument Of The Hypocrites Of Homosexuality That Their Sin Is Not A Sin, We Have Destroyed Ourselves.

Everybody Walks Past A Thousand Story Ideas Every Day.

Poke Gave Him Life. Ender Gave It Meaning.

I Didn't Want To See You." "they Told Me." "i Was Afraid That I'd Still Love You." "i Hoped That You Would.

I'm Putting You In Dink Meeker's Toon. From Now On, As Far As You're Concerned, Dink Meeker Is God." "then Who Are You?" "the Personnel Officer Who Hired God.

Grief,she Reminded Herself, Is Almost Always For The Mourner's Loss.

The Only People Who Think Children Are Carefree Are The Ones Who've Forgotten Their Own Childhood.

Make Friends. Be A Leader. Kiss Butts If You Have To, But If The Other Guys Despise You-you Know What I Mean?

Sister Carlotta, I'm On A Leave Of Absence Right Now. That Means I've Been Sacked, In Case You Don't Understand How The I.f. Handles These Things.” "sacked! A Miscarriage Of Justice. You Ought To Be Shot.

I Need You To Be Clever, Bean. I Need You To Think Of Solutions To Problems We Haven't Seen Yet. I Want You To Try Things That No One Has Ever Tried Because They're Absolutely Stupid.

My Own Feeling Is That Human Happiness Is A Very Random Thing, And Bestows Itself Willy-nilly, And There's Not Much Deserving About The Matter.

He Kissed Her And Killed Her Then Dumped Her Body In The River.

Where Ideas Are Real And Reality Is Shadow.

But In The Meantime I Became Accustomed To The Writing Life And It Would Be Hard To Change Now - Partly Because Of The Salary Cut If I Went To My Other Love, Teaching; And Partly Because I Still Have Stories To Tell, Even Though It Isn't All That Fun Doing The Work Anymore.

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.

A Regime That Wraps Itself In The Flag Of Truth Fears Truth Most Of All, For If Its Story Is Falsified To The Slightest Degree, Its Authority Is Gone.

Some Men Are Great Enough That They Can Love A Whole Woman, And Not Just Part Of Her.

All The Common People Want Is To Be Left Alone. All The Ordinary Soldier Wants Is To Collect His Pay And Not Get Killed. That's Why The Great Forces Of History Can Be Manipulated By Astonishingly Small Groups Of Determined People.

So From Then On, He Looked At All His Choices And Said, What Would A Good Person Do, And Then Did It. But He Has Now Learned Something Very Important About Human Nature. If You Spend Your Whole Life Pretending To Be Good, Then You Are Indistinguishable From A Good Person. Relentless Hypocrisy Eventually Becomes The Truth.

He Is Dead, She Thought Bitterly, Because We Have Forgotten Him.

One Bachelor Is An Irritation. Ten Thousand Bachelors Are A War.

If Only We Were Wiser Or Better People, Perhaps The Gods Would Explain To Us The Mad, Unbearable Things They Do.

It Is Easy To Say That You Can Adopt The Whole Human Race As Your Children, But It Is Not The Same As Living In A Home With A Child And Shaping All You Do To Help Him Learn To Be Happy And Whole And Good. Don't Live Your Life Without Ever Holding A Child In Your Arms, On Your Lap, In Your Home, And Feeling A Child's Arms Around You And Hearing His Voice In Your Ear And Seeing His Smile, Given To You Because You Put It Into Your Heart.

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.

Apparently The Dutch Now Prided Themselves On Being Better At Queues Than The English, Which Was Absurd, Because Standing Cheerfully In Line Was The English National Sport.

Science Fiction Has Rivets, Fantasy Has Trees.

My Hands Are Clean, But Not Because I Wasn't Prepared To Bloody Them.

Personal Affection Is A Luxury You Can Have Only After All Your Enemies Are Eliminated. Until Then, Everyone You Love Is A Hostage, Sapping Your Courage And Corrupting Your Judgment.

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.

This Is How Humans Are: We Question All Our Beliefs, Except For The Ones That We Really Believe In, And Those We Never Think To Question.

In The Moment When I Truly Understand My Enemy, Understand Him Well Enough To Defeat Him, Then In That Very Moment I Also Love Him.

He Would Always Speak The Language Of The Heart With An Awkward Foreign Accent.

From All Wise Men, O Lord, Protect Us.

In The Moment When I Truly Understand My Enemy, Understand Him Well Enough To Defeat Him, Then In That Very Moment I Also Love Him. I Think It’s Impossible To Really Understand Somebody, What They Want, What They Believe, And Not Love Them The Way They Love Themselves. And Then, In That Very Moment When I Love Them.... I Destroy Them.

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

Where Do You Draw The Line Between A Humble Man Who Knows His Own Weaknesses But Tries To Act Out Virtues He Hasn't Quite Mastered Yet, And A Proud Man Who Pretends To Have Those Virtues Without The Slightest Intention Of Acquiring Them?

If He Was A Good Man, How Could He Leave Me? So He Must Not Be A Good Man. But If He Isn't Good, Then Why Does It Hurt So Much To Lose Him?

It's The Problem With Age. You Have All These Rusty Arguments, And No Quarrel To Use Them In. My Brain Is A Museum, But Alas, I'm The Only Visitor, And Even I Am Not Terribly Interested In The Displays.

I've Seen Australia And I've Lived On An Asteroid And I'd Take The Asteroid.

There Is More Good Writing And Good Acting In Any Ten Minutes Of Twister Than In, Say, All Of Citizen Kane.

Someone's Sent A Loving Note In Lines Of Returning Geese And As The Moon Fills My Western Chamber As Petals Dance Over The Flowing Stream Again I Think Of You The Two Of Us Living A Sadness Apart A Hurt That Can't Be Removed Yet When My Gaze Comes Down My Heart Stays Up

You Take A Step, Then Another. That's The Journey. But To Take A Step With Your Eyes Open Is Not A Journey At All, It's A Remaking Of Your Own Mind.

Ho Said, 'i Do Not Grieve Because My Feet Have Been Cut Off. I Grieve Because A Precious Jewel Is Dubbed A Mere Stone, And A Man Of Integrity Is Called A Deceiver. This Is Why I Weep.'

Americans Love To Pick Up, Move On, Start Over. But Instead Of Being Somebody Fresh And New, They Become Somebody Lonely And Lost, Or, Far Too Often These Days, They Become Nobody At All, A Machine For Satisfying Hunger, Without Loyalty Or Honor Or Duty.

I Don't Believe That There Are Aliens. I Believe There Are Really Different People.

If Words Can Be Lethal Weapons, I Must Provide Them With An Arsenal.

Isn’t That What It Means To Be Civilized? That You Can Wait To Get What You Want?

Religion Makes Them Crazy. Not A Woman I Ever Met Wasn't Crazy With Religion.

Peter, You're Twelve Years Old. I'm Ten. They Have A Word For People Our Age. They Call Us Children And They Treat Us Like Mice.

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.

That Was Interesting, To Find That It Wasn't Hunger That Caused Children To Become Bullies On The Street. The Bulliness Was Already In The Child, And Whatever The Stakes Were, They Would Find A Way To Act As They Needed To Act. … Intelligence And Education, Which All These Children Had, Apparently Didn't Make Any Important Difference In Human Nature.

I've Lived Too Long With Pain. I Won't Know Who I Am Without It

Perhaps I'm Hiding From Myself. Perhaps I Don't Want To Be What I'm Supposed To Be. Or Perhaps I Don't Want To Keep Living The Life I Already Started To Live.

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.

This Emotion I'm Feeling Now, This Is Love, Right?" "i Don't Know. Is It A Longing? Is It A Giddy Stupid Happiness Just Because You're With Me?" "yes," She Said. "that's Influenza," Said Miro. "watch For Nausea Or Diarrhea Within A Few Hours.

Whenever The Law Gets Its Hands On You, Those Who Use The Law To Their Own Advantage Will Also Turn It Against You. Don't Put Your Trust In The Laws Of Men, Alvin. They Were Designed By Strong Men To Improve Their Power Over Weaker Ones.

I Be Crazy Too, Little Buddy, But At Least When I Be Craziest, I Be Floating All Alone In Space And The Crazy, She Float Out Of Me, She Soak Into The Walls, And She Don't Come Out Till There Be Battles And Little Boys Bump Into The Walls And Squish Out De Crazy.

The Univers Is Statistically More Likely To Be Ironic Than Not.

It's The Middle Class That Feels The Luxury Of Being Able To Have Causes.

We Spend Our Lives Guessing At What's Going On Inside Everybody Else, And When We Happen To Get Lucky And Guess Right, We Think We 'understand.' Such Nonsense. Even A Monkey At A Computer Will Type A Word Now And Then.

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.

Then You're Dead, Too, Sweet Little Sister.' Oh, Yes,' Said Valentine. 'they'll Believe That. "i Didn't Know It Would Kill Andrew. And When He Was Dead, I Didn't Know It Will Kill Valentine Too.

Oh No, Real Life Is Escape. The Great Terrors, The Horrors--we Hope--of Your Life Come From Reading Fiction.

When There Aren't Any Smart Decisions, I Suppose You Just Have To Pick The Stupid Decision You Like Best.

Science Fiction Is About What Could Be But Isn't; Fantasy Is About What Couldn't Be.

Science Fiction

Doesn't It Make You Wonder About Your Own Sexual Identity, Not To Mention Your Sanity, That The Two Women You Love Are, Respectively, A Virtual Woman Existing Only In The Transient Ansible Connections Between Computers And A Woman Whose Soul Is In Fact That Of A Man Who Is The Husband Of Your Mother?

The Buggers Have Finally, Finally Learned That We Humans Value Each And Every Individual Human Life. But They've Learned This Lesson Just In Time For It To Be Hopelessly Wrong — For We Humans Do, When The Cause Is Sufficient, Spend Our Own Lives. We Throw Ourselves Onto The Grenade To Save Our Buddies In The Foxhole. We Rise Out Of The Trenches And Charge The Entrenched Enemy And Die Like Maggots Under A Blowtorch. We Strap Bombs On Our Bodies And Blow Ourselves Up In The Midst Of Our Enemies. We Are, When The Cause Is Sufficient, Insane.

Don’t Win Loyalty, Just Obedience, And Only While The Lash Is In The Room.

There Was No Name For The Disease; His Body Had Gone Insane, Forgotten The Blueprint By Which Human Beings Were Built. Even Now The Disease Still Lives On In His Children. Not In Our Bodies, But In Our Souls. We Exist Where Normal Human Children Are Expected To Be; We're Even Shaped The Same. But Each Of Us In Our Own Way Has Been Replaced By An Imitation Child, Shaped Out Of A Twisted, Fetid, Lipidous Goiter That Grew Out Of Father's Soul.

Oops, I Thought. Oops Is An All-purpose Word Standing For Every Bit Of Profanity, Blasphemy, And Pornographic And Scatological Execration I Could Think Of.

A Lot Of Human Behavior Was Really Acting Out Our Responses To Dangers Long Past.

The Tribe Is Whatever We Believe It Is. If We Say The Tribe Is All The Little Ones In The Forest, And All The Trees, Then That Is What The Tribe Is. Even Though Some Of The Oldest Trees Here Came From Warriors Of Two Different Tribes, Fallen In Battle. We Become One Tribe Because We Say We're One Tribe." Ender Marveled At His Mind, This Small Raman [member Of Another Sentient Species]. How Few Humans Were Able To Grasp This Idea, Or Let It Extend Beyond The Narrow Confines Of Their Tribe, Their Family, Their Nation.

It's About Me, Or People Wouldn't Be So Anxious To Keep Me From Knowing About It. The Absence Of Information Is Information. ~ Ender

Firequencher Raised His Hand. "i've Been Staying Out Of Family Conversations. Do I Get Credit For That?

We Were All Fated To Die, And So It Is Good That At Least We Can Be Sure Our Deaths Today Might Bring About A Good End, Might Make The World A Better Place.

It Was All Your Genes That Made Us Geniuses, Mom. Said Peter. We Sure Didn't Get Any From Dad. I Heard That. Father Said, Not Looking Up From The News That Was Being Displayed On The Table While He Ate It Would've Been Wasted If You Hadn't

She Remembered The Story From Her Childhood, About Adam And Eve In The Garden, And The Talking Snake. Even As A Little Girl She Had Said - To The Consternation Of Her Family - What Kind Of Idiot Was Eve, To Believe A Snake? But Now She Understood, For She Had Heard The Voice Of The Snake And Had Watched As A Wise And Powerful Man Had Fallen Under Its Spell. Eat The Fruit And You Can Have The Desires Of Your Heart. It's Not Evil, It's Noble And Good. You'll Be Praised For It. And It's Delicious.

Ah, I Am The Judge Of Dreams, And You Are The Judge Of Love. Well, I Find You Guilty Of Dreaming Good Dreams, And Sentence You To A Lifetime Of Working And Suffering For The Sake Of Your Dreams. I Only Hope That Someday You Won't Declare Me Innocent Of The Crime Of Loving You.

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.

Ender Wiggin Must Believe That No Matter What Happens, No Adult Will Ever, Ever Step In To Help Him In Any Way.

...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.

I'm Right Here. This Is Who I Really Am. I'm Not Pretending.

Do Not Shout At Me, Mr. Quill," Said John [adams]. "justice May Be Blind, But She Is Not Deaf.

The Difference Between Science Fiction And Fantasy … Is Simply This: Science Fiction Has Rivets And Fantasy Has Trees.

If It Isn't A Wonderful Story First, Who Cares How "important" It Is?

But Father Has Also Taught Him: Treat A Man As If He Had A Fine Reputation To Protect, And He Will Usually Endeavor To Deserve It.

His Vices Were The Vices Of His Time And Culture, But His Virtues Transcended The Milieu Of His Life.

He’d Undone All He Could. You Can Be Sorry, And You Can Be Forgiven, But You Can’t Call Back The Futures That Your Bad Decisions Lost

I Think It's Impossible To Really Understand Somebody, What They Want, What They Believe, And Not Love Them The Way They Love Themselves.

The Ways Of Love Are Strange And Hard: The Love You Want Is Always Barred; The Love You Have You Want To Change. The Ways Of Love Are Hard And Strange.

The Seed Of Doubt Was There, And It Stayed, And Every Now And Then Sent Out A Little Root. It Changed Everything, To Have That Seed Growing. It Made Ender Listen More Carefully To What People Meant, Instead Of What They Said. It Made Him Wise.

We're Like The Wicked Witch. We Promise Gingerbread, Then Eat The Little Brats Alive.

It's As If Every Conversation With A Woman Was A Test, And Men Always Failed It, Because They Always Lacked The Key To The Code And So They Never Quite Understood What The Conversation Was Really About.

What A Laugh, Though. To Think That One Human Being Could Ever Really Know Another. You Could Get Used To Each Other, Get So Habituated That You Could Speak Their Words Right Along With Them, But You Never Know Why Other People Said What They Said Or Did What They Did, Because They Never Even Know Themselves. Nobody Understands Anybody.

We're All Trying To Decide Whether Your Scores Up There Are A Miracle Or A Mistake." "a Habit.

And Above All, What Does Being Liberal Have To Do With Opposing, Or, Uh, Supporting The War Against Terror? Our Enemies In The War Against Terror Are So Anti-liberal That You Would Think It Would Be Liberals Leaping To Protect The World From These Monstrous Ideologies.

My College Training Was Primarily In Theatre, With An Eye To Becoming A Director, Actor, Or Producer.

That's What So Many People Didn't Understand About Life. The Real World Is The One Within The Walls Of Homes; The Outside World, Of Careers And Politics And Money And Fame, That Was The Fake World, Where Nothing Lasted, And Things Were Real Only To The Extent They Harmed Or Helped People Inside Their Homes.

I Think You Don't Grow Up Until You Stop Worrying About Other People's Purposes Or Lack Of Them And Find The Purposes You Believe In For Yourself.

[it] Was Written And Sold. I Knew It Was A Strong Story Because I Cared About It And Believed In It. I Had No Idea That It Would Have The Effect It Had On The Audience. While Most People Ignored It, Of Course, And Continue To Live Full And Happy Lives Without Reading It Or Anything Else By Me, There Was Still A Surprisingly Large Group Who Responded To The Story With Some Fervency.

Personal Humiliation Was Painful. Humiliation Of One's Family Was Much Worse. Humiliation Of One's Social Status Was Agony To Bear. But Humiliation Of One's Nation Was The Most Excruciating Of Human Miseries.

As A Species, We Have Evolved To Survive. And The Way We Do It Is By Straining And Straining And, At Last, Every Few Generaitons, Giving Brith To Genius. The One Who Invents The Wheel. And Light. And Flight. The One Who Builds A City, A Nation, An Empire...i'll Put It Bluntly. Human Beings Are Free Excpet When Humanity Needs Them. Maybe Humanity Needs You. To Do Something. Maybe Humanity Needs Me - To Find Out What You're Good For.

There's A Sort Of Rage A Man Feels When He's Been Deceived Where He Most Trusted. It Compares To No Other Anger.

But If You Caught My Informant,' Said Achilles, 'why In The World Would Chamrajnagar—or Graff, If It Was Him—launch The Shuttle Anyway? Was Catching Me Doing Something Naughty So Important They’d Risk A Shuttle And It’s Crew Just To Catch Me? I Find That Quite… Flattering. Sort Of Like Winning The Nobel Prize For Scariest Villain.

Everything Possible To Be Believed Is An Image Of Truth." -taleswapper

And What? What's The Other Choice? To Passively Let Things Happen And Then Say: "tut-tut, What At Botch That Was"? Don't We All Manipulate People? Even If We Openly Ask Them To Make A Choice, Don't We Try To Frame It So They'll Chose As We Think They Should?

The Only Way To Retrieve A Secret,once Known, Is To Replace It With A Lie.

This Emotion I'm Feeling Now, This Is Love, Right?

Life Is Full Of Grief, To Exactly The Degree We Allow Ourselves To Love Other People.

Everybody Walks Past A Thousand Story Ideas Every Day. The Good Writers Are The Ones Who See Five Or Six Of Them. Most People Don't See Any.

In A Way She Actually Preferred Peter To Other People Because Of This. He Always Acted Out Of Intelligent Self-interest.

Perhaps Every Writer Who Thoroughly Creates A Fictional World Will Inevitably Create A Mirror Of His Own Time And Yet Also Create A World That No One Else But Him Has Ever Visited.

Fictional Worlds

Short Stories Are Designed To Deliver Their Impact In As Few Pages As Possible. A Tremendous Amount Is Left Out, And A Good Short Story Writer Learns To Include Only The Most Essential Information.

I Love You Ender. More Than Ever. No Matter What You Decide.

It Is The Essence Of Dignity To Pretend To Desire What You Cannot Prevent.

A Good Working Definition Of Fanaticism Is That You Are So Convinced Of Your Views And Policies That You Are Sure That Anyone Who Opposed Them Must Be Either Stupid And Decieved Or Have Some Ulterior Motive. We Are Today A Nation Where Almost Everyone In The Public Eye Displays Fanaticism With Every Utterance.

...you Believe That The Kind Of Story You Want To Tell Might Be Best Received By The Science Fiction And Fantasy Audience. I Hope You're Right, Because In Many Ways This Is The Best Audience In The World To Write For. They're Open-minded And Intelligent. They Want To Think As Well As Feel, Understand As Well As Dream. Above All, They Want To Be Led Into Places That No One Has Ever Visited Before. It's A Privilege To Tell Stories To These Readers, And An Honour When They Applaud The Tale You Tell.

When You Hear A True Story, There Is A Part Of You That Responds To It Regardless Of Art, Regardless Of Evidence. Let It Be The Most Obvious Fabrication And You Will Still Believe Whatever Truth Is In It, Because You Can Not Deny Truth No Matter How Shabbily It Is Dressed.

If Human Beings Are All Monsters, Why Should I Sacrifice Anything For Them?" "because They Are Beautiful Monsters..., And When They Live In A Network Of Peace And Hope, When They Trust The World And Their Deepest Hungers Are Fulfilled, Then Within That System, That Delicate Web, There Is Joy. That Is What We Live For, To Bind The Monsters Together, To Murder Their Fear And Give Birth To Their Beauty.

The Most Important Training, Though, Is To Experience Life As A Writer, Questioning Everything, Inventing Multiple Explanations For Everything. If You Do That, All The Other Things Will Come; If You Don't, There's No Hope For You.

The First Of A Thousand Lies. Truth Flowed To Micah Quill, Was Sucked In And Disappeared, And Emerged Again Looking Ever So Much Like It Used To, But Changed Subtly, At The Edges, Where None Would Notice, So That Simple Truth Became A Complicated Fabric Indeed, One That Could Wrap You Up So Tightly And Close You Off From The Air Until You Suffocated In It.

I Always Tell The Truth About What I’m Selling, And Then Nobody Buys It.

Telling The Truth

As History Shows Us, When Colonization Is Voluntary, People Will Self-select Better Than Any Testing System. It’s Like Those Foolish Attempts To Control Immigration To American Based On The Traits That Were Deemed Desirable, When In Fact The Only Trait That Defines Americans Historically Is “descended From Somebody Willing To Give Up Everything To Live There.” Willingness Is The Single Most Important Test.

Sometimes You Have To Trust People Enough To Let Them Succeed And Love Them Enough To Let Them Fail.

Ender Nodded. It Was A Lie, Of Course, That It Wouldn’t Hurt A Bit. But Since Adults Always Said It When It Was Going To Hurt, He Could Count On That Statement As An Accurate Prediction Of The Future. Sometimes Lies Were More Dependable Than The Truth.

If A Pig Goes Upon The Threshing-floor, Or A Field, Or A Garden, And The Owner Of The Meadow, Or The Field, Or The Garden Smites It So That It Die, He Shall Give It Back To Its Owner; But If He Does Not Give It Back, He Becomes A Thief.

Your Work Is First, Learning Is First, Winning Is Everything Because Without It There Is Nothing.

The Society Whose Citizens Are Willing To Stand And Fight Is The One With The Best Chance Of Surviving Long Enough For History To Even Notice.

It's Called Civilization. Women Invented It, And Every Time You Men Blow It All To Bits, We Just Invent It Again.

The World Was Full Of Locked Doors, And He Had To Get His Hand On Every Key.

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

Thank God For You, Ender. Thank God.

Mazer, I Don't Want To Keep Dreaming These Things. I'm Afraid To Sleep. I Keep Thinking Of Things I Don't Want To Remember. My Whole Life Keeps Playing Out As If I Were A Recorder And Someone Else Wanted To Watch The Most Terrible Parts Of My Life

Ender's Game Is Set More Than A Century In The Future And Has Nothing To Do With Political Issues That Did Not Exist When The Book Was Written In 1984... It Will Be Interesting To See Whether The Victorious Proponents Of Gay Marriage Will Show Tolerance Toward Those Who Disagreed With Them When The Issue Was Still In Dispute.

Any Decent Person Who Knows What Warfare Is Can Never Go Into Battle With A Whole Heart.

The Wise Are Not Wise Because They Make No Mistakes. They Are Wise Because They Correct Their Mistakes As Soon As They Recognize Them.

I've Got A Pretty Good Idea What Children Are, And We're Not Children. Children Can Lose Sometimes, And Nobody Cares.

In All My Study Of History, I Have Never Found A Time Or Place I Would Rather Have Lived Than Now.

Madness, And Then Illumination.

It Was Just Him And Me. He Fought With Honor. If It Weren't For His Honor, He And The Others Would Have Beaten Me Together. They Might Have Killed Me, Then. His Sense Of Honor Saved My Life. I Didn't Fight With Honor . . . I Fought To Win.

In A Way, Being A Mormon Prepares You To Deal With Science Fiction, Because We Live Simultaneously In Two Very Different Cultures. The Result Is That We All Know What It's Like To Be Strangers In A Strange Land. It's Not Just A Coincidence That There Are So Many Effective Mormon Science Fiction Writers. We Don't Regard Being An Alien As An Alien Experience. But It Also Means That We're Not Surprised When People Don't Understand What We're Saying Or What We Think.

I Don't Know A Soul Who Doesn't Maintain Two Separate Lists Of Doctrines The Ones That They Believe That They Believe; And The Ones That They Actually Try To Live By.

It Wasn't So Bad Being A Slave When Your Owner Was Yourself And Stood Up For You.

I Taught You Everything You Know. But I Didn't Teach You Everything I Know.

Perhaps You Don't Desire Poetry As Much As You Would Like To Have My Torchy Knowledge Of Your Possible Futures, But I Dare Say Poetry Will Do You Far More Good. For Knowing The Future Only Makes You Timid And Complacent By Turns, While Poetry Can Shape You Into The Kind Of Souls Who Can Face Any Future With Boldness And Wisdom And Nobility, So That You Need Not Know The Future At All, So That Any Future Will Be An Opportunity For Greatness, If You Have Greatness In You.

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