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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.

-Orson Scott Card

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Perhaps Every Writer Who

Orson Scott Card

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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.

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Fictional Worlds

More From Orson Scott Card

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.

We Thought We Were The Only Thinking Beings In The Universe, Until We Met You, But Never Did We Dream That Thought Could Arise From The Lonely Animals Who Cannot Dream Each Other's Dreams

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

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

Madness, And Then Illumination.

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

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

Telling The Truth

It's What I Was Born For, Isn't It? If I Don't Go, Why Am I Alive?

Science Isn't Done By Consensus. It's Done By Rigorous Testing.

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.

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

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.

This Is What Historians Usually Do, Quibble About Cause And Effect When The Point Is, There Are Times When The World Is In Flux And The Right Voice In The Right Place Can Move The World. Thomas Paine And Ben Franklin, For Instance. Bismark. Lenin.

Intellectual Understanding Does Not Always Bring Visceral Belief.

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

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

Reasonable Argument Is Impossible When Authority Becomes The Arbiter.

There Are Times When The World Is Rearranging Itself, And At Times Like That, The Right Words Can Change The World.

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

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.

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

All Is Going Well, Very Well, I Couldn’t Ask For Anything Better— So Why Do I Hate My Life?

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

And Then He Thought: Is This How Idiots Rationalize Their Stupidity To Themselves?

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.

Early To Bed And Early To Rise," Mazer Intoned, "makes A Man Stupid And Blind In The Eyes.

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

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

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

I Don't Care How Much You Eat, Ender, Self-cannibalism Won't Get You Out Of This School.

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

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

So I Want To Ask You A Hypothetical Question. My Favorite Kind. Next To Rhetorical Ones. I Can Nap Equally Well Through Either Kind.

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

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.

Today, Mr. Darcy Is A Vampire.

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.

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.

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.

To Reach Out To You When I'm In Need, And To Try To Be Here For You When You Need Me Back. And To Feel Such Tenderness When I Look At You That I Want To Stand Between You And All The World: And Yet Also To Lift You Up And Carry You Above The Strong Currents Of Life; And At The Same Time, I Would Be Glad To Stand Always Like This, At A Distance, Watching You, The Beauty Of You.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Stole Their Future From Them; I Can Only Being To Repay By Seeing What I Can Learn From Their Past.

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.

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

Being Young Is An 18 Year Prison Sentence For A Crime Your Parents Committed. But You Do Get Time Off For Good Behavior.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Surely You're Not Saying That God Had To Choose Between Long Life And Intelligence For Human Beings! It's There In Your Own Bible, Carlotta. Two Trees - Knowledge And Life. You Eat Of The Tree Of Knowledge And You Will Surely Die. You Eat Of The Tree Of Life And You Remain A Child In The Garden Forever, Undying.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Carry The Seeds Of Death Within Me And Plant Them Wherever I Linger Long Enough To Love.

We Need A Napoleon. An Alexander. Except That Napoleon Lost In The End, And Alexander Flamed Out And Died Young. We Need A Julius Caesar, Except That He Made Himself A Dictator, And Died For It.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Danger That Keeps Me Just A Little Frightened With Every Book I Write, However, Is That I'll Overreach Myself Once Too Often And Try To Write A Story That I'm Just Plain Not Talented Or Skilful Enough To Write. That's The Dilemma Every Storyteller Faces. It Is Painful To Fail. But It Is Far Sadder When A Storyteller Stops Wanting To Try.

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

Will To Survive

She Will Look At You As Women Look At Men, And She Will Judge You As A Woman Judge Men, Not On The Strength Of Their Arguments, And Not In Their Cleverness Or Prowess In Battle, But Rather On The Force Of Their Character, The Intensity Of Their Passion, Their Strength Of Soul, Their Compassion, And... Ah, This Above All... Their Conversation.

A Rustic Setting Always Suggests Fantasy; To Suggest Science Fiction, You Need Sheet Metal And Plastic. You Need Rivets.

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

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 Only Way To Learn Is By Changing Your Mind.

The Fear Of Death In The One Place Was Not As Strong As Another Kind Of Fear, The Fear Of A World Gone Crazy, A Place Where Anything Could Happen, Where Nothing Could Be Trusted, Where Nothing Was Certain. A Terrible Place.

I Know, You've Been Here A Year, You Think These People Are Normal. Well, They're Not. We're Not. I Look In The Library, I Call Up Books On My Desk. Old Ones, Because They Won't Let Us Have Anything New, But I've Got A Pretty Good Idea What Children Are, And We're Not Children. Children Can Lose Sometimes, And Nobody Cares. Children Aren't In Armies, They Aren't Commanders, They Don't Rule Over Forty Other Kids, It's More Than Anybody Can Take And Not Get Crazy.

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.

In War, Everyone Has Their Chance To Bleed.

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.

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

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.

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

...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.

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.

Your Ego-depletion Seems Problematically Difficult To Assuage.

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.

Since When Do You Have To Tell The Enemy When He Has Won?

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

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

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.

The Priests Say That God Created Our Souls, And That Just Puts Us Under The Control Of Another Puppeteer. If God Created Our Will, Then He's Responsible For Every Choice We Make.

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

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

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.

You Can’t Answer What I Said, So You’re Going To Talk About My Saying It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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

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

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

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

The Essence Of Training Is To Allow Error Without Consequence.

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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?

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

Human Beings Are Free Except When Humanity Needs Them.

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 Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Also Remembered That You Were Beautiful." "memory Does Play Tricks On Us." "no. Your Face Is The Same, But I Don't Remember What Beautiful Means Anymore.

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!

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

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

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.

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

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.

I Hope I Am Remembered By My Children As A Good Father.

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

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.

From All Wise Men, O Lord, Protect Us.

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

I Looked For Perfection, And I Found Something Better.

Something Better

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.

You Will Learn To Defeat The Enemy.

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

Science Fiction

It Will Hurt." Said Petra. "but Let's Make The Most Of What We Have, And Not Let Future Pain Ruin Present Happiness.

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

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

You’re Not A Human Being Until You Value Something More Than The Life Of Your Body. And The Greater The Thing You Live And Die For The Greater You Are.

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

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

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

There Was No Doubt Now In Ender's Mind. There Was No Help For Him. Whatever He Faced, Now And Forever, No One Would Save Him From It. Peter Might Be Scum, But Peter Had Been Right, Always Right; The Power To Cause Pain Is The Only Power That Matters, The Power To Kill And Destroy, Because If You Can't Kill Then You Are Always Subject To Those Who Can, And Nothing And No One Will Ever Save You.

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.

Like Running The Hurdles. Work So Hard, Jump Over Every One, Fast, High Enough But No Higher, Because You Can't Afford To Hang In The Air. And Then, When The Race Is Over, You're Dripping With Sweat, Either They Beat You Or You Beat Them ... And Then A Couple Of Guys Come Out And Move The Hurdles Out Of The Way. Turns Out They Were Nothing. All That Work To Jump Over Them, But Now They're Gone.

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.

Laws Against Homosexual Behavior Should Remain On The Books, Not To Be Indiscriminately Enforced Against Anyone Who Happens To Be Caught Violating Them, But To Be Used When Necessary To Send A Clear Message That Those Who Flagrantly Violate Society's Regulation Of Sexual Behavior Cannot Be Permitted To Remain As Acceptable, Equal Citizens Within That Society.

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

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

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

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

All The Stories Are Fictions. What Matters Is Which Fiction You Believe.

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.

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

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

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.

Where Ideas Are Real And Reality Is Shadow.

Yesterday Someone Sent A Message That Was Signed God! Bernard Said. Really? Dap Said. I Didn't Know He Was Signed Onto The System

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.

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.

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

Sometimes Lies Were More Dependable Than The Truth.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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