Background Image

...

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.

-Orson Scott Card

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Selective Voluntary Blindness

Orson Scott Card

...

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.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Orson Scott Card

Withholding A Decision Is A Decision.

You're Cultural Supremacists To The Core. You'll Perform Your Questionable Activities To Help Out The Poor Little Piggies, But There Isn't A Chance In The World You'll Notice When They Have Something To Teach You.

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

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

One Mind Can Think Only Of Its Own Questions; It Rarely Surprises Itself.

Sometimes Lies Were More Dependable Than The Truth.

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.

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

I Will Never Hurt You. I Will Always Help You. If You Are Hungry Ill Give You My Food. If You Are Frightened I Am Your Friend. I Love You Now. And Love Does Not End.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

As History Shows Us, When Colonization Is Voluntary, People Will Self-select Better Than Any Testing System. It’s Like Those Foolish Attempts To Control Immigration To American Based On The Traits That Were Deemed Desirable, When In Fact The Only Trait That Defines Americans Historically Is “descended From Somebody Willing To Give Up Everything To Live There.” Willingness Is The Single Most Important Test.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whenever The Law Gets Its Hands On You, Those Who Use The Law To Their Own Advantage Will Also Turn It Against You. Don't Put Your Trust In The Laws Of Men, Alvin. They Were Designed By Strong Men To Improve Their Power Over Weaker Ones.

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'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.

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.

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

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.

A Man Always Assumes That Others Are As Virtuous As Himself

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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 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 Best Thing About My Job, Though, Is Stopping At The End Of The Day And Rejoining The Human Universe.

The End Of The Day

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

She Likes Us,” Said Umbo. “i Know, I Could Feel It Too,” Said Rigg. “she’s Really Glad To Have Us Here. I Think She Loves Us Like Her Own Children.” “whom She Murdered And Cut Up Into The Stew.” “they Were Delicious.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Ah, I Am The Judge Of Dreams, And You Are The Judge Of Love. Well, I Find You Guilty Of Dreaming Good Dreams, And Sentence You To A Lifetime Of Working And Suffering For The Sake Of Your Dreams. I Only Hope That Someday You Won't Declare Me Innocent Of The Crime Of Loving You.

My College Training Was Primarily In Theatre, With An Eye To Becoming A Director, Actor, Or Producer.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Science Fiction Has Rivets, Fantasy Has Trees.

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.

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

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

Where Ideas Are Real And Reality Is Shadow.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

A Man Who Can't Read Only Knows What Other Folks Tell Him.

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

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.

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

How Short Life Is For Fools.

How Short Life Is

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.

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

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

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

I Looked For Perfection, And I Found Something Better.

Something Better

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

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.

From All Wise Men, O Lord, Protect Us.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

Madness, And Then Illumination.

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.

I Listen To Music Constantly While Writing.

Listening To Music

Rumors Are The Sauce Of A Dry Life.

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

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

I Think That Most Of Us, Anyway, Read These Stories That We Know Are Not "true" Because We're Hungry For Another Kind Of Truth: The Mythic Truth About Human Nature In General, The Particular Truth About Those Life-communities That Define Our Own Identity, And The Most Specific Truth Of All: Our Own Self-story. Fiction, Because It Is Not About Someone Who Lived In The Real World, Always Has The Possibility Of Being About Oneself. --from The Introduction

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.

Darkness Bound Them Closer Than Light.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

Ender Nodded. It Was A Lie, Of Course, That It Wouldn’t Hurt A Bit. But Since Adults Always Said It When It Was Going To Hurt, He Could Count On That Statement As An Accurate Prediction Of The Future. Sometimes Lies Were More Dependable Than The Truth.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

Let Me Be Loved Like That, By A Man Who Will Not Replace Me With Concubines When I'm Old And Ugly. Let Me Be Loved By A Man Who Loves God More Than Me.

Working Is Hard And Distracts From Having Fun.

Bean Could See The Hunger In Their Eyes. Not The Regular Hunger, For Food, But The Real Hunger, The Deep Hunger, For Family, For Love, For Belonging.

I Buy Way Too Many Books.

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

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.

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.

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

The Difference Between Raman And Varelse Is Not In The Creature Judged, But In The Creature Judging. When We Declare An Alien Species To Be Raman, It Does Not Mean That They Have Passed A Threshold Of Moral Maturity. It Means That We Have.

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.

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.

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

Two Sides Of The Same Coin, But Which Side Is Which?

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

An Enemy, Ender Wiggin," Whispered The Old Man. "i Am Your Enemy, The First One You've Ever Had Who Was Smarter Than You. There Is No Teacher But The Enemy. No One But The Enemy Will Tell You What The Enemy Is Going To Do. No One But The Enemy Will Ever Teach You How To Destroy And Conquer. Only The Enemy Shows You Where You Are Weak. Only The Enemy Tells You Where He Is Strong. And The Rules Of The Game Are What You Can Do To Him And What You Can Stop Him From Doing To You. I Am Your Enemy From Now On. From Now On I Am Your Teacher.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

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

In Philosophy Class I Think We Finally Decided That 'good' Is An Infinitely Recursive Term - It Can't Be Defined Except In Terms Of Itself. Good Is Good Because It's Better Than Bad, Though Why It's Better To Be Good Than Bad Depends On How You Define Good, And On And On.

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

Trending Author

Louis Farrakhan

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Category