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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

-Orson Scott Card

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It Was All Your

Orson Scott Card

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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

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Today, Mr. Darcy Is A Vampire.

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

A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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

Twisted And Perverse Are The Ways Of The Human Mind," Jane Intoned. "pinocchio Was Such A Dolt To Try To Become A Real Boy. He Was Much Better Off With A Wooden Head.

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

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

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

There Is No Society That Does Not Highly Value Fictional Storytelling. Ever.

As Long As You Keep Getting Born, It's Alright To Die Some Times.

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.

Everybody Walks Past A Thousand Story Ideas Every Day.

We Care About Moral Issues, Nobility, Decency, Happiness, Goodness—the Issues That Matter In The Real World, But Which Can Only Be Addressed, In Their Purity, In Fiction.

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.

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

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?

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.

Working Is Hard And Distracts From Having Fun.

Ender Understood More Than She Said. Manipulation Of Gravity Was One Thing; Deception By The Officers Was Another; But The Most Important Message Was This: The Adults Are The Enemy, Not The Other Armies. They Do Not Tell Us The Truth.

I Merely Observe That All Living Things Are Manipulated. As Long As There Is A Will, It Is Bent And Twisted Constantly. Only The Dead Are Allowed The Luxury Of Freedom, And Then Only Because They Want Nothing, And Therefore Can't Be Thwarted.

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.

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

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.

Dona Crista Laughed A Bit. "oh, Pip, I'd Be Glad For You To Try. But Do Believe Me, My Dear Friend, Touching Her Heart Is Like Bathing In Ice." I Imagine. I Imagine It Feels Like Bathing In Ice To The Person Touching Her. But How Does It Feel To Her? Cold As She Is, It Must Surely Burn Like Fire.

It Has Been My Experience That The Better A Man You Are, The More Folks There Are Who Resent You For It, And Find Occasion To Get Angry At You No Matter How Kindly Meant Your Deeds May Be.

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

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

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.

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--

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.

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

...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 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.

Most Victories Came From Instantly Exploiting Your Enemy's Stupid Mistakes, And Not From Any Particular Brilliance In Your Own Plan.

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.

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.

Your Trust In Rationality Makes You Irrational.

The Nations That Offer To Arbitrate Are The Ones That Think They Should Rule The World.

The Best Thing About My Job, Though, Is Stopping At The End Of The Day And Rejoining The Human Universe.

The End Of The Day

I'll Have That Someday, Thought Peter. Someone Who'll Kiss Me Good-bye At The Door. Or Maybe Just Someone To Put A Blindfold Over My Head Before They Shoot Me. Depending On How Things Turn Out.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Nobodys Life Ever Goes According To Plan. So Why Do We Keep On Planning? Because That's How We Know Who We Are. By What We Intend To Be. By What We Try To Become. And Fail. I Don't Say 'fail'. I Saw We Aim And Miss. But We Still Hit Something.

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.

So The Whole War Is Because We Can't Talk To Each Other.

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

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

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

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.

People Above You, They Never Want To Share Power With You. Why You Look To Them? They Give You Nothing. People Below You, You Give Them Hope, You Give Them Respect, They Give You Power, Cause They Don't Think They Have Any, So They Don't Mind Giving It Up.

Metaphors Have A Way Of Holding The Most Truth In The Least Space.

Whether He Likes It Or Not, [he] Cannot Remain Incognito Forever. He Has Outraged Too Many Wise Men And Pleased Too Many Fools To Hide Behind His Too-appropriate Order To Assume Leadership Of The Forces Of Stupidity He Has Marshalled, Or His Enemies Will Unmask Him In Order To Better Understand The Disease That Has Produced Such A Warped And Twisted Mind.

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

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

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.

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

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?

You Accomplish Exactly As Much As The People Who Serve You Decide You'll Accomplish And Nothing More.

The Only Way To Learn Is By Changing Your Mind.

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.

Reasonable Argument Is Impossible When Authority Becomes The Arbiter.

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

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

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.

Where Ideas Are Real And Reality Is Shadow.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

An Enemy, Ender Wiggin," Whispered The Old Man. "i Am Your Enemy, The First One You've Ever Had Who Was Smarter Than You. There Is No Teacher But The Enemy. No One But The Enemy Will Tell You What The Enemy Is Going To Do. No One But The Enemy Will Ever Teach You How To Destroy And Conquer. Only The Enemy Shows You Where You Are Weak. Only The Enemy Tells You Where He Is Strong. And The Rules Of The Game Are What You Can Do To Him And What You Can Stop Him From Doing To You. I Am Your Enemy From Now On. From Now On I Am Your Teacher.

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

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!

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

What A Waste Of Time To Be Posthumously Famous.

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

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.

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

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

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

Whoop-de-do," Said Ram. "what?" "i'm Celebrating." "was That Irony Or Loss Of Mental Function?" Asked The Expendable. "was That A Rhetorical Questions, A Bit Of Humor, Or A Sign That You Are Losing Confidence In Me?" "i Have No Confidence In You, Ram," Said The Expendable. "well, Thanks." "you're Welcome.

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

The Lives Of All People Flow Through Time, And, Regardless Of How Brutal One Moment May Be, How Filled With Grief Or Pain Or Fear, Time Flows Through All Lives Equally.

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?

Rumors Are The Sauce Of A Dry Life.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Ulysses, Obviously. It Was An Elaborate Prank, And Our Supposed Intellectual Elite Continue To Fall For It.

I Will Love You Forever, He Thought. I Am Lying, He Thought, And This Time He Was Right

If You Lay A Hand On Me I'll Ram Your Testicles So Far Up Inside Your Abdomen It'll Take A Heart Surgeon To Get Them Out.

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

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.

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.

Humanity Does Not Ask Us To Be Happy. It Merely Asks Us To Be Brilliant On Its Behalf.

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

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

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 Want To Be The Kind Of Boy You Are, Thought Bean. But I Don’t Want To Go Through What You’ve Been Through To Get There.

From All Wise Men, O Lord, Protect Us.

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

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.

My Father Always Said That Government Is Like Watching Another Man Piss In Your Boot. Someone Feels Better But It Certainly Isn't You.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Dreamers Always Seem To Think Their Dream Is Worth The Price That Other People Will Pay. They Also Delude Themselves That They Will Control Whatever Evil They Use To Try To Bring About Their Dream.

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

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

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

I Realized That Everything Important In Sci-fi Showed Up In The Magazines First. It's The Proving Ground For New Writers And New Ideas.

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.

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.

Madness, And Then Illumination.

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

But I Fear That I Also Underestimate The Stupidity Of The Rest Of Mankind. Are We Absolutely Sure That We Ought To Win This War?

The Great Forces Of History Were Real, After A Fashion. But When You Examined Them Closely, Those Great Forces Always Came Down To The Dreams And Hungers And Judgments Of Individuals.

As He Thought Of It, Though, He Could Not Imagine What “just Living” Might Actually Be. He Had Never Done It In His Life. But He Wanted To Do It Anyway.

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.

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

Please Don't Disillusion Me. I Haven't Had Breakfast Yet.

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.

Sometimes Happiness Consists Of Finding The Right Balance Of Misery.

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

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

Ethan Wyeth: I Hope You're Thirsty." Gideon Wyeth:"why?" Ethan: "cause Your Dumb And Ugly, But I Can Do Something About Thirsty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

History Is An Omlette. The Eggs Are Already Broken.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Your Dream Is A Good One. [. . .] The Desire That Is The Very Root Of Life Itself: To Grow Until All The Space You Can See Is Part Of You, Under Your Control. It's The Desire For Greatness.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Know Everything I Need To Know Already," Rigg Always Said... To Which Father Always Replied,"see How Ignorant You Are? You Don't Even Know Why You Need To Know The Things You Don't Know Yet." "so Tell Me," Said Rigg. "i Would But You're Too Ignorant To Understand The Reasons Why Your Ignorance Is A Fatal Disease.

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.

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

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.

Home Is Where The People Who Live There Need Me To Come Home To Them, And Worry About Me When I'm Gone. There's No Such Place On This Earth, No Matter How Far I Drive.

When You Really Know Someone, You Can't Hate Him.

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.

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

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

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.

In Philosophy Class I Think We Finally Decided That 'good' Is An Infinitely Recursive Term - It Can't Be Defined Except In Terms Of Itself. Good Is Good Because It's Better Than Bad, Though Why It's Better To Be Good Than Bad Depends On How You Define Good, And On And On.

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.

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.

Andrew Said You Were The Best Person He Ever Knew." "he Reached That Conclusion Before He Saw Me Raise Three Barbarian Children To Adulthood. I Understand Your Mother Has Six." "right." "and You're The Oldest." "yes." "that's Too Bad. Parents Always Make Their Worst Mistakes With The 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.

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

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

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

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.

An Eye For An Eye? How Christian Of You.' Unbelievers Always Want Other People To Act Like Christians.

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

The Only Teacher That's Worth Anything To You Is Your Enemy.

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.

Just Because The Only Way You Can Maintain Control Over Your Bodily Passions Is To Sit Straight In Your Chair, Knees Together, Hands Delicately Arranged In Our Lap, Fingers Tightly Intertwined, Does Not Mean That I Am Required To Do The Same.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

If You Listen Very Carefully, You Can Hear The Good Fairy Come In The Night And Leave Our Assignment For Tomorrow.

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