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The First Of A Thousand Lies. Truth Flowed To Micah Quill, Was Sucked In And Disappeared, And Emerged Again Looking Ever So Much Like It Used To, But Changed Subtly, At The Edges, Where None Would Notice, So That Simple Truth Became A Complicated Fabric Indeed, One That Could Wrap You Up So Tightly And Close You Off From The Air Until You Suffocated In It.

-Orson Scott Card

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The First Of A

Orson Scott Card

...

The First Of A Thousand Lies. Truth Flowed To Micah Quill, Was Sucked In And Disappeared, And Emerged Again Looking Ever So Much Like It Used To, But Changed Subtly, At The Edges, Where None Would Notice, So That Simple Truth Became A Complicated Fabric Indeed, One That Could Wrap You Up So Tightly And Close You Off From The Air Until You Suffocated In It.

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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.

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

. . . All These Readers Have Placed Themselves Inside This Story, Not As Spectators, But As Participants, And So Have Looked At The World, Not With My Eyes Only, But Also With Their Own.

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.

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

Reasonable Argument Is Impossible When Authority Becomes The Arbiter.

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

Ender Stepped Under The Water And Rinsed Himself, Took The Sweat Of Combat And Let It Run Down The Drain. All Gone, Except They Recycled It And We'll Be Drinking Bonzo's Blood Water In The Morning. All The Life Gone Out Of It, But His Blood Just The Same, His Blood And My Sweat, Washed Down In Their Stupidity Or Cruelty Or Whatever It Was That Made Them Let It Happen.

Darkness Bound Them Closer Than Light.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

How Short Life Is For Fools.

How Short Life Is

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Short Stories Are Designed To Deliver Their Impact In As Few Pages As Possible. A Tremendous Amount Is Left Out, And A Good Short Story Writer Learns To Include Only The Most Essential Information.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

History Is An Omlette. The Eggs Are Already Broken.

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.

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.

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.

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

Music Isn't Just A Pleasure, A Transient Satisfaction. It's A Need, A Deep Hunger; And When The Music Is Right, It's Joy. Love. A Foretaste Of Heaven. A Comfort In Grief. Is It Too Much To Think That Perhaps God Speaks To Us Sometimes Through Music? How, Then, Could I Be So Ungrateful As To Refuse The Message?

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.

Quim," She Said, "don't Ever Try To Teach Me About Good And Evil. I've Been There, And You've Seen Nothing But A Map.

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

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.

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.

The Essence Of Training Is To Allow Error Without Consequence.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Human Beings Are Free Except When Humanity Needs Them. Maybe Humanity Needs You. To Do Something. Maybe Humanity Needs Me—to Find Out What You're Good For. We Might Both Do Despicable Things, Ender, But If Humankind Survives, Then We Were Good Tools.

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

Sister Carlotta, I'm On A Leave Of Absence Right Now. That Means I've Been Sacked, In Case You Don't Understand How The I.f. Handles These Things.” "sacked! A Miscarriage Of Justice. You Ought To Be Shot.

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

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

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

I Don't Hate You, I Love You, You're Part Of Myself, You're My Heart And When You Go It's My Heart Torn Out And Carried Away--

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Laws Against Homosexual Behavior Should Remain On The Books.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Lies We Live Will Always Be Confessed In The Stories That We Tell.

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

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.

If You Try And Lose Then It Isn't Your Fault. But If You Don't Try And We Lose, Then It's All Your Fault.

Motivational Work

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Changing The World Is Good For Those Who Want Their Names In Books. But Being Happy, That Is For Those Who Write Their Names In The Lives Of Others, And Hold The Hearts Of Others As The Treasure Most Dear.

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.

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

Perhaps It's Impossible To Wear An Identity Without Becoming What You Pretend To Be.

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.

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

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.

'so If We Can We'll Kill Every Last Of The Buggers, And If They Can They'll Kill Every Last One Of Us. As For Me,' Said Ender, 'i'm In Favor Of Surviving'.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Where Do You Draw The Line Between A Humble Man Who Knows His Own Weaknesses But Tries To Act Out Virtues He Hasn't Quite Mastered Yet, And A Proud Man Who Pretends To Have Those Virtues Without The Slightest Intention Of Acquiring Them?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

No Human Being, When You Understand His Desires, Is Worthless. No One's Life Is Nothing. Even The Most Evil Of Men And Women, If You Understand Their Hearts, Had Some Generous Act That Redeems Them, At Least A Little, From Their Sins.

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

Thank You For This, Peter. For Dry Eyes And Silent Weeping. You Taught Me How To Hide Anything I Felt. More Than Ever, I Need That Now.

Nobody Ever Completely Means What They Say. Even When They Think They're Telling The Truth, There's Always Something Hidden Behind Their Words.

Telling The Truth

The First Of A Thousand Lies. Truth Flowed To Micah Quill, Was Sucked In And Disappeared, And Emerged Again Looking Ever So Much Like It Used To, But Changed Subtly, At The Edges, Where None Would Notice, So That Simple Truth Became A Complicated Fabric Indeed, One That Could Wrap You Up So Tightly And Close You Off From The Air Until You Suffocated In It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

But Father Has Also Taught Him: Treat A Man As If He Had A Fine Reputation To Protect, And He Will Usually Endeavor To Deserve It.

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

Thank God For You, Ender. Thank God.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Every Person Is Defined By The Communities She Belongs To.

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

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.

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

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 Think Santa Claus Is, By And Large, Quite Beneficial, For When The Child Is Finally Allowed -- Or Forced -- To Recognize The Nonexistence Of Santa Claus, Then The Child Is Able To Go Through The Vital Intellectual Process Of Reconstructing Reality In Light Of New Evidence, Complete With Back-forming New Stories To Account For Past Events. This Prepares The Child For Many Other Disillusionments And Gives Her Vital And Well-supported Experience In Maintaining Her Grip On Reality Independent Of The Stories Told To Her At Any Given Time.

A Broken Clock Is Right Two Times A Day.

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.

In War, Everyone Has Their Chance To Bleed.

I Say This As A Democrat, For Whom The Republican Domination Of Government Threatens Many Values That I Hold To Be Important To America's Role As A Light Among Nations. But There Are No Values That Matter To Me That Will Not Be Gravely Endangered If We Lose This War.

Your Ego-depletion Seems Problematically Difficult To Assuage.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Legalizing Gay Marriage Is Not About Making It Possible For Gay People To Become Couples. It's About Giving The Left The Power To Force Anti-religious Values On Our Children. Once They Legalize Gay Marriage, It Will Be The Bludgeon They Use To Make Sure That It Becomes Illegal To Teach Traditional Values In The Schools.

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

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.'

Be Proud, Bonito, Pretty Boy. You Can Go Home And Tell Your Father, Yes, I Beat Up Ender Wiggin, Who Was Barely Ten Years Old, And I Was Thirteen. And I Had Only Six Of My Friends To Help Me, And Somehow We Managed To Defeat Him, Even Though He Was Naked And Wet And Alone--ender Wiggin Is So Dangerous And Terrifying It Was All We Could Do Not To Bring Two Hundred.

Withholding A Decision Is A Decision.

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

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.

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

Humanity Does Not Ask To Be Happy.it Merely Asks Us To Be Brilliant On Its Behalf. Survival First, And Then Happiness As We Can Manage It... Take What Pleasure You Can In The Interstices Of Your Work, , But Your Work Is First, Learning First, Winning Is Everything Because Without It There Is Nothing.

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

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.

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

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