Background Image

...

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

-Orson Scott Card

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Personal Affection Is A

Orson Scott Card

...

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

Views: 7

Topic

More From Orson Scott Card

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Human Beings Are Free Except When Humanity Needs Them.

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.

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

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.

Madness, And Then Illumination.

Intellectual Understanding Does Not Always Bring Visceral Belief.

Withholding A Decision Is A Decision.

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

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.

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

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

Maybe She Couldn't Know Who She Was Today. Maybe It Was Enough To Know That She Was No Longer Who She Was Before.

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

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.

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.

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

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

If You Asked Me To Marry You All Over Again Today I'd Say Yes, Said Valentine. And If I Had Only Met You For The First Time Today, I'd Ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There's A Reason Why Every Human Society Has Fiction. It Teaches Us How To Be 'good,' To Behave In A Way That Is For The Benefit Of The Whole Community.

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.

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

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

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

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

Someday Stars Will Wind Down Or Blow Up. Someday Death Will Cover Us All Like The Water Of A Lake And Perhaps Nothing Will Ever Come To The Surface To Show That We Were Ever There. But We Were There, And During The Time We Lived, We Were Alive. That's The Truth - What Is, What Was, What Will Be - Not What Could Be, What Should Have Been, What Never Can Be.

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

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

Fictional Worlds

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

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

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

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

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

At Last He Came To A Door, With These Words In Glowing Emeralds: The End Of The World He Did Not Hesitate. He Opened The Door And Stepped Through.

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

Laws Against Homosexual Behavior Should Remain On The Books.

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.

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

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

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

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

What A Waste Of Time To Be Posthumously Famous.

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.

Just Because You Believe It Doesn't Make It So.

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

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.

Love Is Random; Fear Is Inevitable.

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.

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

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

I've Watched Through His Eyes, I've Listened Through His Ears, And I Tell You He's The One.

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

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

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

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

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

I Think That A Good Person Can Sometimes Do Wrong Out Of Ignorance Or Weakness Or Wrong Thinking, But When Hard Times Come, The Goodness Wins Out After All. And A Bad Person Can Often Seem Good And Trustworthy For A Long Time, But When Hard Times Come, The Evil In Him Gets Revealed.

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

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.

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

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

Science Fiction

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Sometimes Lies Were More Dependable Than The Truth.

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

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.

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?

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

The Criminal Misuse Of Time Was Pointing Out The Mistakes. Catching Them―noticing Them―that Was Essential. 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. The Part Of The Man's Statement That Was True, However, Was About The Uselessness Of Speaking Up. If I Know That The Teacher Is Wrong, And Say Nothing, Then I Remain The Only One Who Knows, And That Gives Me An Advantage Over Those Who Believe The Teacher.

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

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.

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

A Man Always Assumes That Others Are As Virtuous As Himself

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

No Human Being, When You Understand His Desires, Is Worthless. No One's Life Is 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

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.

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

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.

Nonsense," Said Graff. "ender Always Has Plans Within Plans.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Only Way To Learn Is By Changing Your Mind.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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

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

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

There's Always Hope... Even When There Isn't Faith. And Sometimes, Without Hope Or Faith, There Must Be Charity.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Only People Who Ever Prize Purity Of Ignorance Are Those Who Profit From A Monopoly On Knowledge.

When You Really Know Somebody You Can’t Hate Them. Or Maybe It’s Just That You Can’t Really Know Them Until You Stop Hating Them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Trending Author

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Vinny Guadagnino

Alma Guillermoprieto

Category