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Humans Invent An Imaginary Lover And Put That Mask Over The Face Of The Body In Their Bed. That Is The Tragedy Of Language My Friend. Those Who Know Each Other Only Through Symbolic Representations Are Forced To Imagine Each Other. And Because Their Imagination Is Imperfect, They Are Often Wrong.

-Orson Scott Card

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Humans Invent An Imaginary

Orson Scott Card

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Humans Invent An Imaginary Lover And Put That Mask Over The Face Of The Body In Their Bed. That Is The Tragedy Of Language My Friend. Those Who Know Each Other Only Through Symbolic Representations Are Forced To Imagine Each Other. And Because Their Imagination Is Imperfect, They Are Often Wrong.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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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

Evil People Naturally Assume That You Will Use That Power Exactly As They Would Use It.

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Well, How Do I Know That They Don't Know The Answer Unless I Ask?

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

He Walked Down The Corridor, Lined With His Soldiers, Who Looked At Him With Love, With Awe, With Trust. Except Bean, Who Looked At Him With Anguish. Ender Wiggin Was Not Larger Than Life, Bean Knew. He Was Exactly Life-sized, And So His Larger-than-life Burden Was Too Much For Him. And Yet He Was Bearing It. So Far.

Larger Than Life

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?

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

Unemployment Is Capitalism's Way Of Getting You To Plant A Garden.

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

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

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.

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

I Don't Hate You, I Love You, You're Part Of Myself, You're My Heart And When You Go It's My Heart Torn Out And Carried Away--

We Don't Read Novels To Have An Experience Like Life. Heck, We're Living Lives, Complete With All The Incompleteness. We Turn To Fiction To Have An Author Assure Us That It Means Something.

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

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

The Story Is One That You And I Will Construct Together In Your Memory. If The Story Means Anything To You At All, Then When You Remember It Afterward, Think Of It, Not As Something I Created, But Rather As Something That We Made Together.

"we've Devoted Our Lives To Learning About Them!" Miro Said. Ender Stopped. "not From Them."

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?

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

When You Walk On The Face Of A World, Then Forgiveness Comes.

How Long Before Married People Answer The Dictators Thus: 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, So It Can Be Replaced With A Government That Will Respect And Support Marriage, And Help Me Raise My Children In A Society Where They Will Expect To Marry In Their Turn.

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.

A Man Who Can't Read Only Knows What Other Folks Tell Him.

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.

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 I Wanted To Doubt, Then I Could Doubt Endlessly, But At Some Point A Person Has To Stop Questioning And Act, And At That Point You Have To Trust Something To Be True. You Have To Act As If Something Is True, And So You Choose The Thing You Have The Most Reason To Believe In, You Have To Live In The World That You Have The Most Hope In.

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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.

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Once You Duct-tape A Ziploc Bag To A Man's Chest, There's No Going Back.

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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.

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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.

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Welcome To The Human Race. Nobody Controls His Own Life, Ender.

Nobody Ever Wrote To Me Saying"you Know Ender's Game Was A Pretty Good Book, But You Know What It Really Needs A N Introduction!".....so Be Assured The Novel Stands On Its Own, And If You Skip This Intro And Go Straight To The Story, I Not Only Won't Stand In Your Way I'll Even Agree With You!

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

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Poke Gave Him Life. Ender Gave It Meaning.

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

To Have A Choice At All Is To Be Free - Even When The Choice Is Between Two Terrible Things.

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.

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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.

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

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It's Simple. Nothing Exists Except In Relation To Something Else.

Thank God For You, Ender. Thank God.

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

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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.

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Come Into Our Home, Daughters Of Earth; Dwell In Our Tunnels, Harvest Our Fields; What We Cannot Do, You Are Now Our Hands To Do For Us. Blossom, Trees; Ripen, Fields; Be Warm For Them, Suns; Be Fertile For Them, Planets: They Are Our Adopted Daughters, And They Have Come Home.

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

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.

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?

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.

Take Me Home, He Said Silently To Graff. In My Dream You Said You Loved Me. Take Me Home

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The Future Is A Hundred Thousand Threads, But The Past Is A Fabric That Can Never Be Rewoven.

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.

You Killed More People Than Anybody In History." "be The Best At Whatever You Do, That's What My Mother Always Told Me.

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

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.

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 Know How Writers Are... They Create Themselves As They Create Their Work. Or Perhaps They Create Their Work In Order To Create Themselves.

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

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

He's Not A Killer. He Just Wins... Thoroughly

Your Trust In Rationality Makes You Irrational.

Religion Is Tied To The Deepest Feelings People Have. The Love That Arises From That Stewing Pot Is The Sweetest And Strongest, But The Hate Is The Hottest, And The Anger Is The Most Violent.

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

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

There Is A Myth That Homosexuals Are 'born That Way,' And We Are Pounded With This Idea So Thoroughly That Many People Think That Somebody, Somewhere, Must Have Proved It.

The Only Way To Learn Is By Changing Your Mind.

When I Write Fiction, I Create Characters Whose Views Are Not My Own, And I Allow Them To Be Eloquent In Defense Of Their, Not My, Views.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Into The The Air, Into The Earth, Into The Fire, I Am With You.

To Expect Wickedness From Human Beings Is The Best Way I Know Of To Avoid Surprises. And When I Am Surprised, It's Always Pleasantly.

When You Have Faith In Something A Lot Of Other People Believe Then You A Member Of The Church" Said Ceas, "when You Have Faith In Something Nobody Believes, Then You A Complete Wacko

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.

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

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.

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

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.

Love Is Random; Fear Is Inevitable.

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.

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?

I've Had Your Tears With Mine, And You've Had Mine With Yours. I Think That's More Intimate Even Than A Kiss.

The Only True Vision Comes Not From God But From The Inmost Recesses Of The Human Mind.

But Whether There's Some Grand Design Really Matters Little To Me. My Only Hope Was This: To See What Might Be, To Believe That It Should Be, And Then To Do All I Could To Bring It To Pass, Whatever The Cost.

I Think That Most Of Us, Anyway, Read These Stories That We Know Are Not "true" Because We're Hungry For Another Kind Of Truth: The Mythic Truth About Human Nature In General, The Particular Truth About Those Life-communities That Define Our Own Identity, And The Most Specific Truth Of All: Our Own Self-story. Fiction, Because It Is Not About Someone Who Lived In The Real World, Always Has The Possibility Of Being About Oneself. --from The Introduction

America Is An Empire That Does Not Wish To Be One ; We Are Easily Discouraged From Doing What Must Be Done To Maintain The Global Order That Allows Democracy And Prosperity To Flourish.

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.

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

The Most Noble Title Any Child Can Have, Demosthenes Wrote, Is Third.

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

It's Easy To Manipulate Your Children When They're Absolutely Sure You're Stupid.

How Short Life Is For Fools.

How Short Life Is

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

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.

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

...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.

It Is The Downfall Of Evil, That It Never Sees Far Enough Ahead.

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

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.

And If You're Going To Criticize Me For Not Finishing The Whole Thing And Tying It Up In A Bow For You, Why, Do Us Both A Favor And Write Your Own Damn Book, Only Have The Decency To Call It A Romance Instead Of A History, Because History's Got No Bows On It, Only Frayed Ends Of Ribbons And Knots That Can't Be Untied. It Ain't A Pretty Package, But Then It's Not Your Birthday That I Know Of So I'm Under No Obligation To Give You A Gift.

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

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.

Quing-jao: I Am A Slave To The Gods, And I Rejoice In It. Jane: A Slave Who Rejoices Is A Slave Indeed.

I Don't Care If I Pass Your Test, I Don't Care If I Follow Your Rules. If You Can Cheat, So Can I. I Won't Let You Beat Me Unfairly - I'll Beat You Unfairly First. - Ender

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.

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.

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.

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.

Asking A Man If He Could Be Trusted Was Like Asking An Unwed Girl If She Was A Virgin. The Question Mattered, But The Asking Of It Was Gross Insult.

America's Intellectual Community Has Never Been Very Bright. Or Honest. They're All Sheep, Following Whatever The Intellectual Fashion Of The Decade Happens To Be. Demanding That Everyone Follow Their Dicta In Lockstep. Everyone Has To Be Open-minded And Tolerant Of The Things They Believe, But God Forbid They Should Ever Concede, Even For A Moment, That Someone Who Disagrees With Them Might Have Some Fingerhold Of Truth.

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.

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

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

No Human Being, When You Understand His Desires, Is Worthless. No One's Life Is Nothing. Even The Most Evil Of Men And Women, If You Understand Their Hearts, Had Some Generous Act That Redeems Them, At Least A Little, From Their Sins.

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

What You Are Is A Man Who Means To Be Good, And Undo The Bad He's Done, And That's As Good As Any Man Ever Gets.

What Am I Now, Alai?" "still Good." "at What?" "at--anything. There's A Million Soldiers Who'd Follow You To The End Of The Universe." "i Don't Want To Go To The End Of The Universe." "so Where Do You Want To Go? They'll Follow You." I Want To Go Home, Thought Ender, But I Don't Know Where It Is.

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

When Both Parties Are Lying And They Both Know The Other Party's Lying, It Comes Powerful Close To Being The Same Thing As Telling The Truth.

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.

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

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

No Human Being, When You Understand His Desires, Is Worthless. No One's Life Is Nothing.

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

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

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