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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.

-Orson Scott Card

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Someday Stars Will Wind

Orson Scott Card

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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.

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I'm Not A Liar, Sir,' She Said. "'no, I'm Sure You Sincerely Become Whatever It Is You're Pretending To Be.

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.

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

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

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.

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

'i Could Kill You Like This,' Peter Whispered. 'just Press And Press Until You're Dead'.

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!

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?

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

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

That's What So Many People Didn't Understand About Life. The Real World Is The One Within The Walls Of Homes; The Outside World, Of Careers And Politics And Money And Fame, That Was The Fake World, Where Nothing Lasted, And Things Were Real Only To The Extent They Harmed Or Helped People Inside Their Homes.

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

[it] Was Written And Sold. I Knew It Was A Strong Story Because I Cared About It And Believed In It. I Had No Idea That It Would Have The Effect It Had On The Audience. While Most People Ignored It, Of Course, And Continue To Live Full And Happy Lives Without Reading It Or Anything Else By Me, There Was Still A Surprisingly Large Group Who Responded To The Story With Some Fervency.

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.

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.

At Some Point, Every Science Fiction And Fantasy Story Must Challenge The Reader's Experience And Learning. That's Much Of The Reason Why The Genre Is So Open To Experimentation And Innovation That Other Genres Reject--strangeness Is Our Bread And Butter. Spread It Thick Or Slice It Thin, It's Still Our Staff Of Life.

I Own The Whole World, And Folks Haven't Been Keeping Up Too Well On The Payments.

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?" "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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

It's The Problem With Age. You Have All These Rusty Arguments, And No Quarrel To Use Them In. My Brain Is A Museum, But Alas, I'm The Only Visitor, And Even I Am Not Terribly Interested In The Displays.

The Worst Thing About The Fantasies Of The Mentally Ill Is That They're So Damned Consistent. They Never Let Up. They Never Give You Any Rest.

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.

You Who Speak Languages, You Are Such Liars.

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.

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

Working Is Hard And Distracts From Having Fun.

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

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?

Rumors Are The Sauce Of A Dry Life.

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

Darkness Bound Them Closer Than Light.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Sometimes Good People Have To Do Terrible Things.

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.

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 Really Know Someone, You Can't Hate Him.

I Think You Don't Grow Up Until You Stop Worrying About Other People's Purposes Or Lack Of Them And Find The Purposes You Believe In For Yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is In The Turmoil Of Chaos That We Discover What, If Anything, We Are.

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

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

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.

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.'

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

If A Pig Goes Upon The Threshing-floor, Or A Field, Or A Garden, And The Owner Of The Meadow, Or The Field, Or The Garden Smites It So That It Die, He Shall Give It Back To Its Owner; But If He Does Not Give It Back, He Becomes A Thief.

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

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

History Is An Omlette. The Eggs Are Already Broken.

Withholding A Decision Is A Decision.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

I'm Never Impossible. The Most I Ever Allow Myself Is To Be Somewhat Unlikely.

If You Give Orders And Explain Nothing, You Might Get Obedience, But You'll Get No Creativity. If You Tell Them Your Purpose, Then When Your Original Plan Is Shown To Be Faulty, They'll Find Another Way To Achieve Your Goal. Explaining To Your Men Doesn't Weaken Their Respect For You, It Proves Your Respect For Them.

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

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 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.

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

You Want To Beat Peter?" She Asked "no," He Answered "beat The Buggers. Then Come Home And See Who Notices Peter Wiggen Anymore. Look Him In The Eye When All The World Loves And Reveres You. That'll Be Defeat In His Eyes, Ender, Thats How You Win" "you Don't Understand" He Said "yes I Do" "no You Don't. I Don't Want To Beat Peter" "then What Do You Want?" "i Want Him To Love Me

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

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

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

The Seed Of Doubt Was There, And It Stayed, And Every Now And Then Sent Out A Little Root. It Changed Everything, To Have That Seed Growing. It Made Ender Listen More Carefully To What People Meant, Instead Of What They Said. It Made Him Wise.

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

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.

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Americans Love To Pick Up, Move On, Start Over. But Instead Of Being Somebody Fresh And New, They Become Somebody Lonely And Lost, Or, Far Too Often These Days, They Become Nobody At All, A Machine For Satisfying Hunger, Without Loyalty Or Honor Or Duty.

Intellectual Understanding Does Not Always Bring Visceral Belief.

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.

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

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

Telling The Truth

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

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

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

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 Have Too Many Secrets. For All These Years I've Been A Speaker For The Dead, Uncovering Secrets And Helping People To Live In The Light Of Truth. Now I No Longer Tell Anyone Half Of What I Know, Because If I Told The Whole Truth There Would Be Fear, Hatred, Brutality, Murder, War.

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

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

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

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.

What Else Should You Be? Human Beings Didn't Evolve Brains In Order To Lie Around On Lakes. Killing's The First Thing We Learned. And A Good Thing We Did, Or We'd Be Dead, And The Tigers Would Own The Earth.

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

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.

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

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 Was Just Him And Me. He Fought With Honor. If It Weren't For His Honor, He And The Others Would Have Beaten Me Together. They Might Have Killed Me, Then. His Sense Of Honor Saved My Life. I Didn't Fight With Honor . . . I Fought To Win.

A Man Always Assumes That Others Are As Virtuous As Himself

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

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

A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

Human Beings Are Free Except When Humanity Needs Them.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Individual Human Beings Are All Tools, That The Others Use To Help Us All Survive.” “that’s A Lie.” “no. It’s Just A Half Truth. You Can Worry About The Other Half After We Win This War.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Have Never Resisted The Lord In My Life, And I Never Will. But I'm Not So Hungry For Dialogue With Him That I Have To Make Up His Part As Well As My Own.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Because Never In My Entire Childhood Did I Feel Like A Child. I Felt Like A Person All Along―the Same Person That I Am Today.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Does It Help If We're So Strong-willed, Stubborn, Ambitious, And Selfish That We Always Overcome Everything In Our Way No Matter What?" Asked Wang-mu. "i Think Those Are The Pertinent Virtues, Yes," Said Peter. "then Let's Do It. That's Us In Spades.

What A Waste Of Time To Be Posthumously Famous.

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.

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.

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

Science Fiction Has Rivets, Fantasy Has Trees.

Madness, And Then Illumination.

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.

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

Reasonable Argument Is Impossible When Authority Becomes The Arbiter.

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

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

In War, Everyone Has Their Chance To Bleed.

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.

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