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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.

-Orson Scott Card

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The Buggers Have Finally,

Orson Scott Card

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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.

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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 But Each Of Us In Our Own Way Has Been Replaced By An Imitation Child, Shaped Out Of A Twisted, Fetid, Lipidous Goiter That Grew Out Of Father's Soul.

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

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

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

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.

I Have Hope For You, If Only Because You're The Only One Left To Hope For.

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

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

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

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

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

And What? What's The Other Choice? To Passively Let Things Happen And Then Say: "tut-tut, What At Botch That Was"? Don't We All Manipulate People? Even If We Openly Ask Them To Make A Choice, Don't We Try To Frame It So They'll Chose As We Think They Should?

Poke Gave Him Life. Ender Gave It Meaning.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

But The Truth Is That No Person Ever Understands Another, From Beginning To End Of Life, There Is No Truth That Can Be Known, Only The Story We Imagine To Be True, The Story They Really Believe To Be True About Themselves; And All Of Them Lies.

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.

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.

I've Learned Much, Father, And This Above All: That No Station In Life Is Above Any Other, If It's Occupied By Someone With A Good Heart.

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

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

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

So Let Me Tell You What I Think About Gods. I Think A Real God Is Not Going To Be So Scared Or Angry That He Tries To Keep Other People Down…a Real God Doesn’t Care About Control. A Real God Already Has Control Of Everything That Needs Controlling. Real Gods Would Want To Teach You How To Be Just Like Them.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

O My Son Absalom,' Bean Said Softly, Knowing For The First Time The Kind Of Anguish That Could Tear Such Words From A Man’s Mouth. 'my Son, My Son Absalom. Would God I Could Die For Thee, O Absalom, My Son. My Sons!

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.

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

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.

Love Is Random; Fear Is Inevitable.

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

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

I Learned To Separate The Story From The Writing, Probably The Most Important Thing That Any Storyteller Has To Learn-that There Are A Thousand Right Ways To Tell A Story, And Ten Million Wrong Ones, And You're A Lot More Likely To Find One Of The Latter Than The Former Your First Time Through The Tale.

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

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

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.

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.

The Education That Prepared Me Was My General Education Classes, Which I Tried To Avoid When I Was A Stupid Undergraduate, But Which Gave Me The Foundation Of General Knowledge That Makes A Career As A Writer Possible.

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

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

A Duel Is Just Two Murders Who Agree To Take Turns Trying To Kill Each Other.

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.

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

...the Thing With Brothers Is, You're Supposed To Take Turns Being The Keeper. Sometimes You Get To Sit Down And Be The Brother Who Is Kept.

I 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.

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.

The Essence Of Training Is To Allow Error Without Consequence.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Do You Know Why Satan Is So Angry All The Time? Because Whenever He Works A Particularly Clever Bit Of Mischief God Uses It To Serve His Own Rigteous Purposes." "so God Uses Wicked People As His Tools?" "god Gives Us The Freedom To To Do Great Evil, If We Choose, Then He Uses His Own Freedom To Create Goodness Out Of That Evil, For That Is What He Chooses." "so, In The Long Run, God Always Wins?" "yes, In The Short Run Though It Can Be Uncomfortable.

The Commercial Work Of Today Is The Classics Of Tomorrow.

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.

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

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

My Hands Are Clean, But Not Because I Wasn't Prepared To Bloody Them.

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?

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

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

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

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.

I'm A Democrat Voting For Bush, Even Though On Economic Issues, From Taxes To Government Regulation, I'm Not Happy With The Republican Positions. But We're At War, And Electing A President Who Is Committed To Losing It Seems To Be The Most Foolish Thing We Could Do. Personal Honesty Is Also Important To Me, And Kerry Is Obviously Not In The Running On That Point, Given That He Can't Keep Track Of The Facts In His Own Autobiography.

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.

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.

It's Called Civilization. Women Invented It, And Every Time You Men Blow It All To Bits, We Just Invent It Again.

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

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

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.

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

Sometimes Good People Have To Do Terrible Things.

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

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.

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.

Because If You Can’t Kill Then You Are Always Subject To Those Who Can, And Nothing And No One Will Ever Save You.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Sometimes Happiness Consists Of Finding The Right Balance Of Misery.

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

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

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

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

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?

This Is How Humans Are: We Question All Our Beliefs, Except For The Ones That We Really Believe In, And Those We Never Think To Question.

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

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.

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

Science Fiction

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.

Today, Mr. Darcy Is A Vampire.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Remember, The Enemy's Gate Is Down.

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.

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.

God, Our Genes, Our Environment, Or Some Stupid Programmer Keying In Code At An Ancient Terminal - There's No Way Free Will Can Ever Exist If We As Individuals Are The Result Of Some External Cause.

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.

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.

In Creating The Strange Milieu In Which Your Story Takes Place, You Must First Understand As Well As You Possibly Can The Familiar Milieu In Which Your Own Life Is Taking Place. Until You Have Examined And Comprehended The World Around You, You Can't Possibly Create A Complex And Believable Imaginary World.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Always Think Of Books As Being Like People. Even The Dull Ones Are Worthy Of Decent Respect, But You Don't Have To Seek Them Out And Spend Time With Them.

In War, Everyone Has Their Chance To Bleed.

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

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

Madness, And Then Illumination.

He Could See Bonzo's Anger Growing Hot. Hot Anger Was Bad. Ender's Anger Was Cold, And He Could Use It. Bonzo's Was Hot, And So It Used Him.

A 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.

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

It Is The Essence Of Dignity To Pretend To Desire What You Cannot Prevent.

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.

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?

I Buy Way Too Many Books.

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

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

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.

This Is The Speaker For The Dead? Judging Someone By Appearances?" "maybe I've Fallen In Love With Grego." "you've Always Been A Sucker For People Who Pee On You.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

History Is An Omlette. The Eggs Are Already Broken.

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.

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!

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.

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

Knowing Something May Be A Terrible Burden To Bear, But It Holds No Danger To Them As Aren't Afraid Of Truth.

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

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.

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

You Can't Write A Novel All At Once, Any More Than You Can Swallow A Whale In One Gulp. You Do Have To Break It Up Into Smaller Chunks. But Those Smaller Chunks Aren't Good Old Familiar Short Stories. Novels Aren't Built Out Of Short Stories. They Are Built Out Of Scenes.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 Take A Step, Then Another. That's The Journey. But To Take A Step With Your Eyes Open Is Not A Journey At All, It's A Remaking Of Your Own Mind.

With False Names, On The Right Nets, They Could Be Anybody. Old Men, Middle-aged Women, Anybody, As Long As They Were Careful About The Way They Wrote. All That Anyone Would See Were Their Words, Their Ideas. Every Citizen Started Equal, On The Nets.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Darkness Bound Them Closer Than Light.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Human Beings Are Free Except When Humanity Needs Them.

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