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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.

-Orson Scott Card

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God, Our Genes, Our

Orson Scott Card

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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.

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

So Let Me Tell You What I Think About Gods. I Think A Real God Is Not Going To Be So Scared Or Angry That He Tries To Keep Other People Down…a Real God Doesn’t Care About Control. A Real God Already Has Control Of Everything That Needs Controlling. Real Gods Would Want To Teach You How To Be Just Like Them.

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

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

You Spend Your Whole Life Grieving For Those Who Haven't Died Yet.

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

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

How Short Life Is For Fools.

How Short Life Is

Human: That's Stupid. Isn't There Grass On Both Sides?

The Most Evil Creatures Dont Desire The Destruction Of Everythingthey Only Desire To Exploit It For Themselves.

When Have You Ever Seen Someone Who Had No Doubts Who Was Also Correct About Anything?

No Book, However Good, Can Survive A Hostile Reading.

Music Isn't Just A Pleasure, A Transient Satisfaction. It's A Need, A Deep Hunger; And When The Music Is Right, It's Joy. Love. A Foretaste Of Heaven. A Comfort In Grief. Is It Too Much To Think That Perhaps God Speaks To Us Sometimes Through Music? How, Then, Could I Be So Ungrateful As To Refuse The Message?

Here's The Secret That Every Successful Software Company Is Based On: You Can Domesticate Programmers The Way Beekeepers Tame Bees. You Can't Exactly Communicate With Them, But You Can Get Them To Swarm In One Place And When They're Not Looking, You Can Carry Off The Honey.

Peace. That's What Salaam Means. Peace Unto You." The Words Brought Forth An Echo From Ender's Memory. His Mother's Voice Reading To Him Softly, When He Was Very Young. ... The Kiss, The Word, The Peace Were With Him Still. I Am Only What I Remember, And Alai Is My Friend In A Memory So Intense That They Can't Tear Him Out. Like Valentine, The Strongest Memory Of All.

The World Is Always A Democracy In Times Of Flux, And The Man With The Best Voice Will Win.

This Is The Speaker For The Dead? Judging Someone By Appearances?" "maybe I've Fallen In Love With Grego." "you've Always Been A Sucker For People Who Pee On You.

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

Isn't It Possible, He Wondered, For One Person To Love Another Without Trying To Own Each Other? Or Is That Buried So Deep In Our Genes That We Can Never Get It Out? Territoriality. My Wife. My Friend. My Lover. My Outrageous And Annoying Computer Personality Who's About To Be Shut Off At The Behest Of A Half-crazy Girl With Ocd On A Planet That I Never Heard Of And How Will I Live Without [her] When She's Gone?

A Weak King Must Be What Other Kings Have Been; A Strong King Is Himself, And From Then On The Meaning Of The Name Of King Is Changed.

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 Their Words, Their Ideas. Every Citizen Started Equal, On The Nets.

From All Wise Men, O Lord, Protect Us.

Poke Gave Him Life. Ender Gave It Meaning.

A Duel Is Just Two Murders Who Agree To Take Turns Trying To Kill Each Other.

Your Trust In Rationality Makes You Irrational.

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

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.

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

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.

You Grow A Whole Lot More As A Writer By Getting Old Stories Out Of The House And Letting New Ones Come In And Live With You Until They Grow Up And Are Ready To Go. Don't Let The Old Ones Stay There And Grow Fat And Cranky And Eat All The Food Out Of The Refrigerator. You Have Dozens Of Generations Of Stories Inside You, But The Only Way To Make Room For The New Ones Is To Write The Old Ones And Mail Them Off.

If The Other Fellow Can't Tell You His Story, You Can Never Be Sure He Isn't Trying To Kill You.

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.

The Problem With Elections Is That Anybody Who Wants An Office Badly Enough To Run For It Probably Shouldn’t Have It. And Anybody Who Does Not Want An Office Badly Enough To Run For It Probably Shouldn’t Have It, Either. Government Office Should Be Received Like A Child’s Christmas Present, With Surprise And Delight. Instead It Is Usually Received Like A Diploma, An Anticlimax That Never Seems Worth The Struggle To Earn It.

Maybe That's All Demons Ever Are. People Like Us, Doing Things Without Even Knowing What We're Doing.

Perhaps It's Impossible To Wear An Identity Without Becoming What You Pretend To Be.

Mom," Said Peter, "nobody Thinks You're A Lackwit, If That's What You're Worried About." Lackwit? In What Musty Drawer Of Some Dead English Professor's Dust-covered Desk Did You Find That Word? I Assure You That Never In My Worst Nightmares Did I Ever Suppose That I Was A Lackwit.

Love Is Random; Fear Is Inevitable.

In My View, Suicide Is Not Really A Wish For Life To End.' What Is It Then?' It Is The Only Way A Powerless Person Can Find To Make Everybody Else Look Away From His Shame. The Wish Is Not To Die, But To Hide.

I'm A Democrat Voting For Bush, Even Though On Economic Issues, From Taxes To Government Regulation, I'm Not Happy With The Republican Positions. But We're At War, And Electing A President Who Is Committed To Losing It Seems To Be The Most Foolish Thing We Could Do. Personal Honesty Is Also Important To Me, And Kerry Is Obviously Not In The Running On That Point, Given That He Can't Keep Track Of The Facts In His Own Autobiography.

Where Loyalty Bound Creatures Together, They Became Something Larger, Something New And Whole And Inexplicable.

Legalizing Gay Marriage Is Not About Making It Possible For Gay People To Become Couples. It's About Giving The Left The Power To Force Anti-religious Values On Our Children. Once They Legalize Gay Marriage, It Will Be The Bludgeon They Use To Make Sure That It Becomes Illegal To Teach Traditional Values In The Schools.

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.

Soldiers Can Sometimes Make Decisions That Are Smarter Than The Orders They've Been Given.

It Just Gripes Me Hollow, The Way God Always Sneaks In To Take The Credit.

Aw, Poke, You Poor, Kind, Decent, Stupid Girl. You Saved Me And I Let You Down.

I Have To Win This Now, And For All Time, Or I’ll Fight It Every Day And It Will Get Worse And Worse.

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.

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

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.

If You Did Not In Your Own Mind Distinguish Between Useful And Erroneous Information, Then You Were Not Learning At All, You Were Merely Replacing Ignorance With False Belief, Which Was No Improvement.

I Am Especially Grateful, However, To Have Known The Fifties, Before We Began To Poison Our Own Civilization - Or At Least Before The Effects Of The Poison Began To Be Felt.

A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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.

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.

You Can't Write A Novel All At Once, Any More Than You Can Swallow A Whale In One Gulp. You Do Have To Break It Up Into Smaller Chunks. But Those Smaller Chunks Aren't Good Old Familiar Short Stories. Novels Aren't Built Out Of Short Stories. They Are Built Out Of Scenes.

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

If You Try And Lose Then It Isn't Your Fault. But If You Don't Try And We Lose, Then It's All Your Fault.

Motivational Work

If Anyone Have Intercourse With A Pig Or A Dog, He Shall Die. If A Man Have Intercourse With A Horse Or A Mule, There Is No Punishment. But He Shall Not Approach The King, And Shall Not Become A Priest... If A Pig Spring Upon A Man For Intercourse, There Is No Punishment.

Sometimes Good People Have To Do Terrible Things.

That Night Demosthenes Published A Scathing Denunciation Of The Population Limitation Laws. People Should Be Allowed To Have As Many Children As They Like, And The Surplus Population Should Be Sent To Other Worlds, To Spread Mankind So Far Across The Galaxy That No Disaster, No Invasion Could Ever Threaten The Human Race With Annihilation. "the Most Noble Title Any Child Can Have," Demosthenes Wrote, "is Third.

The Only Way To Learn Is By Changing Your Mind.

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.

Do You Know Why Satan Is So Angry All The Time? Because Whenever He Works A Particularly Clever Bit Of Mischief God Uses It To Serve His Own Rigteous Purposes." "so God Uses Wicked People As His Tools?" "god Gives Us The Freedom To To Do Great Evil, If We Choose, Then He Uses His Own Freedom To Create Goodness Out Of That Evil, For That Is What He Chooses." "so, In The Long Run, God Always Wins?" "yes, In The Short Run Though It Can Be Uncomfortable.

For Children Love Is A Feeling; For Adults, It Is A Decision. Children Wait To Learn If Their Love Is True By Seeing How Long It Lasts; Adults Make Their Love True By Never Wavering From Their Commitment.

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.

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

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.

...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.

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.

He Loved Her, As You Can Only Love Someone Who Is An Echo Of Yourself At Your Time Of Deepest Sorrow.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Even The Most Introverted Person Alive Is Constantly Hungry For Human Association

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

You're Cultural Supremacists To The Core. You'll Perform Your Questionable Activities To Help Out The Poor Little Piggies, But There Isn't A Chance In The World You'll Notice When They Have Something To Teach You.

Your Ego-depletion Seems Problematically Difficult To Assuage.

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.

Two Sides Of The Same Coin, But Which Side Is Which?

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.

But When It Comes To Human Beings, The Only Type Of Cause That Matters Is Final Cause, The Purpose. What A Person Had In Mind. Once You Understand What People Really Want, You Can't Hate Them Anymore. You Can Fear Them, But You Can't Hate Them, Because You Can Always Find The Same Desires In Your Own Heart.

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.

It Is A Weak Man Who Blames His Failures On The Strength Of Others.

If Pigs Could Vote, The Man With The Slop Bucket Would Be Elected Swineherd Every Time, No Matter How Much Slaughtering He Did On The Side.

I Doubt That America Will Come To Europe Again. You'll Be On Your Own Against Militant Islam.

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.

I Think Santa Claus Is, By And Large, Quite Beneficial, For When The Child Is Finally Allowed -- Or Forced -- To Recognize The Nonexistence Of Santa Claus, Then The Child Is Able To Go Through The Vital Intellectual Process Of Reconstructing Reality In Light Of New Evidence, Complete With Back-forming New Stories To Account For Past Events. This Prepares The Child For Many Other Disillusionments And Gives Her Vital And Well-supported Experience In Maintaining Her Grip On Reality Independent Of The Stories Told To Her At Any Given Time.

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.

You Who Speak Languages, You Are Such Liars.

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?

Science Fiction Has Rivets, Fantasy Has Trees.

Intellectual Understanding Does Not Always Bring Visceral Belief.

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?

Once You Have The Gallows, You'll Find New Reasons To Hang People From It.

Every Person Is Defined By The Communities She Belongs To.

Working Is Hard And Distracts From Having Fun.

Humanity Does Not Ask To Be Happy.it Merely Asks Us To Be Brilliant On Its Behalf. Survival First, And Then Happiness As We Can Manage It... Take What Pleasure You Can In The Interstices Of Your Work, , But Your Work Is First, Learning First, Winning Is Everything Because Without It There Is Nothing.

From Now On The Enemy Is More Clever Than You. From Now On The Enemy Is Stronger Than You. From Now On You Are Always About To Lose.

The Selective Voluntary Blindness Of Human Beings Allows Them To Ignore The Moral Consequences Of Their Choices. It Has Been One Of The Species' Most Valuable Traits, In Terms Of The Survival Of Any Particular Human Community.

I Have Lived In The Only Decades I Could Have Lived In, And Hope To Live Through At Least A Few More.

War Was Never So Careful As To Inflict Suffering Only Where It Was Merited.

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

Good People Can't Out-think Evil, Cause Evil Thinks Of Things Good Folks Can't Think Of.

And Enough For Me That When My Hand Touched Your Shoulder, You Leaned On Me; And When You Felt Me Slip Away, You Called My Name.

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

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

Knowledge Is Just Opinion That You Trust Enough To Act Upon.

A Man Always Assumes That Others Are As Virtuous As Himself

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.

A Character Is What He Does, Yes - But Even More, A Character Is What He Means To Do.

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.

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.

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

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.

Regardless Of Law, Marriage Has Only One Definition, And Any Government That Attempts To Change It Is My Mortal Enemy. I Will Act To Destroy That Government And Bring It Down.

I Buy Way Too Many Books.

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.

Today, Mr. Darcy Is A Vampire.

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.

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

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.

Before We Are Citizens, We Are Children, And It Is As Children That We Come To Understand Freedom And Authority, Liberty And Duty.

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.

When I Am Drunk I Am At My Best. It Is The National Knack Of The French.

That Is The Ultimate Power, To Stare Death In The Face And Be Unafraid.

It Is Possible To Have Words Come To Your Mind, And Still Refrain From Speaking Them Aloud.

Truth, When We Are Fortunate Enough To Find It, Is Like Bad-tasting Medicine. It Rarely Comes As A Pleasant Surprise, Because If It Surprises Us, It Means We've Been Denying It For Some Time And Have A Lot Of Beliefs Based On Falsehood. It's Hard To Give Up Those Beliefs.

None Of Us Could Be Happy For Long, Doing Nothing.

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.

If Desire Did Not Dim The Brain, Nobody Would Ever Get Married, Drunk, Or Fat. ~val

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

No Matter How Sexually Attracted A Man Might Be Toward Other Men, Or A Woman Toward Other Women, And No Matter How Close The Bonds Of Affection And Friendship Might Be Within Same-sex Couples, There Is No Act Of Court Or Congress That Can Make These Relationships The Same As The Coupling Between A Man And A Woman.

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

Parents Always Make Their Worst Mistakes With Their Oldest Children. That's When Parents Know The Least And Care The Most, So They're More Likely To Be Wrong And Also More Likely To Insist That They're Right.

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.

It's The Teachers, They're The Enemy. They Get Us To Fight Each Other, To Hate Each Other.

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.

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.

It's All Just Fictions Anyway. We Do What We Do And Then We Make Up Reasons For It Afterward But They're Never The True Reasons, The Truth Is Always Just Out Of Reach.

Satanic Verses Is A Despicable Book That Could Not Have Been Written By A Person Who Wished To Behave Decently And Responsibly.

It Is A Common Trait Of Primates To Become Submissive And Even Worshipful Toward One Who Has The Power To Kill Them.

You Want To Make Me The Best Soldier Possible. Go Down And Look At The Standings. Look At The All-time Standings. So Far You're Doing An Excellent Job With Me. Congratulations. Now When Are You Going To Put Me Up Against A Good Army?

Congratulations

Laws Against Homosexual Behavior Should Remain On The Books.

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.

The Education That Prepared Me Was My General Education Classes, Which I Tried To Avoid When I Was A Stupid Undergraduate, But Which Gave Me The Foundation Of General Knowledge That Makes A Career As A Writer Possible.

If You Read To Your Kids You'll Make Readers Out Of Them, Partly Because They'll Associate Reading With Good Parent Time.

In Order To Learn, One Must Change One's Mind.

Isn't It Possible, He Wondered, For One Person To Love Another Without Trying To Own Each Other? Or Is That Buried So Deep In Our Genes That We Can Never Get It Out? Territoriality.

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?

Human Beings Do Metamorphose. They Change Their Identity Constantly. However, Each New Identity Thrives On The Delusion That It Was Always In Possession Of The Body It Has Just Conquered.

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

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.

I Don't Know Why People Who Got What They Need To Be Happy Don't Just Go Ahead And Be Happy.

That's The Problem With Winning Right From The Start, Thought Ender. You Lose Friends.

With Life. Rooter Says That Life Is How God Gives Purpose To The Universe.

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

Home Is Anywhere That You Know All Your Friends And All Your Enemies.

He Jumped At The Giants Face, Clambered Up His Lip And Nose, And Began To Dig In The Giant's Eye.

For It Is In The Millions Of Small Melodies That The Truth Of History Is Always Found, For History Only Matters Because Of The Effects We See Or Imagine In The Lives Of The Ordinary People Who Are Caught Up In, Or Give Shape To, The Great Events.

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

Where Ideas Are Real And Reality Is Shadow.

Don't Lie To Me! Don't Seem So Normal When I Know You Have Cut Yourself Off From Me In Your Heart! If You Can Put On Our Affectionate Closeness Like A Mask, Then I'll Never Be Able To Take Joy In It Again.

[t]he Politically Correct Are Above The Rules Of Ordinary Civility, Once They Have Identified You As An Unbeliever In Their Religion.

Nobody Ever Completely Means What They Say. Even When They Think They're Telling The Truth, There's Always Something Hidden Behind Their Words.

Telling The Truth

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.

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

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.

The Lord Took Twice The Time Making Thee, Alvin Smith, Cause It Took That Long To Put The Mischief In.

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.

One Mind Can Think Only Of Its Own Questions; It Rarely Surprises Itself.

Order And Disorder', Said The Speaker, 'they Each Have Their Beauty.

Death Is Not A Tragedy To The One Who Dies; To Have Wasted The Life Before That Death, That Is The Tragedy.

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.

We Have To Go. I'm Almost Happy Here.

People Love To Hear The Brag Of The Local Boy, Because They Want Him To Be Great, But The Foreigner Must Deny That He Has Any Outstanding Virtue - This Is What Will Endear Him To The Locals.

The Funny Thing Was, You See, That Mike Fink Didn't Think Of Himself As A Murderer. He Thought Of Life As A Contest, And Dying Was What Happened To Those Who Came Out Second Best, But It Wasn't The Same As Murder, It Was A Fair Fight.

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.

I Will Never Hurt You. I Will Always Help You. If You Are Hungry Ill Give You My Food. If You Are Frightened I Am Your Friend. I Love You Now. And Love Does Not End.

Maybe We're The Fools, For Thinking We Know Things. Maybe Humans Are The Only Ones Who Can Deal With The Fact That Nothing Can Ever Be Known At All.

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.

Oh, I'll Live Ender's Life, Too. It's So Much More Interesting Than My Own." ~val

Thanks From Keeping Me From Being A Liar," Said Nikolai. "what?" "about Your Having Diarrhea." "for You I'd Get Dysentery." "now That's Friendship.

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.

I Wonder Sometimes If The Motivation For Writers Ought To Be Contempt, Not Admiration.

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.

She Likes Us,” Said Umbo. “i Know, I Could Feel It Too,” Said Rigg. “she’s Really Glad To Have Us Here. I Think She Loves Us Like Her Own Children.” “whom She Murdered And Cut Up Into The Stew.” “they Were Delicious.

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.

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

Miro, I'm So Sorry. I Always Felt Such Pity For You Humans Because You Could Only Think Of One Thing At A Time And Your Memories Were So Imperfect And . . . Now I Realize That Just Getting Through The Day Without Killing Somebody Can Be An Achievement." It Gets To Be A Habit. Most Of Us Manage To Keep Our Body Count Quite Low. It's The Neighborly Way To Live.

Love Is Finding That The Things You Like Best About Yourself Are Not In You At All, But In The Person Who Completes You

Things You Like

My Favourite All-time Work Of Fiction: Lord Of The Rings. My Favourite All-time Nonfiction Book: Guns, Germs, And Steel. Ask Me Again Next Week, You'll Get A Different Answer.

Everybody Walks Past A Thousand Story Ideas Every Day.

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

Science Fiction

One Judge Is Coughing His Life Out Into Bloody Handkerchiefs And The Other Is Burying His Wife, And You Think This Is How God Answers Your Prayers?

And Yet.. Even If You Had Been Right, It Would Only Have Been By Accident. A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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 Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

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

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