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We Need A Napoleon. An Alexander. Except That Napoleon Lost In The End, And Alexander Flamed Out And Died Young. We Need A Julius Caesar, Except That He Made Himself A Dictator, And Died For It.

-Orson Scott Card

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We Need A Napoleon.

Orson Scott Card

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We Need A Napoleon. An Alexander. Except That Napoleon Lost In The End, And Alexander Flamed Out And Died Young. We Need A Julius Caesar, Except That He Made Himself A Dictator, And Died For It.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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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!

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

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

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

I Am A Creature Of Chemicals.

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

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

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

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.

You Will Learn To Defeat The Enemy.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I've Got A Pretty Good Idea What Children Are, And We're Not Children. Children Can Lose Sometimes, And Nobody Cares.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

America Is An Empire That Does Not Wish To Be One ; We Are Easily Discouraged From Doing What Must Be Done To Maintain The Global Order That Allows Democracy And Prosperity To Flourish.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

No Matter How Sexually Attracted A Man Might Be Toward Other Men, Or A Woman Toward Other Women, And No Matter How Close The Bonds Of Affection And Friendship Might Be Within Same-sex Couples, There Is No Act Of Court Or Congress That Can Make These Relationships The Same As The Coupling Between A Man And A Woman.

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

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.

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

If Anyone Have Intercourse With A Pig Or A Dog, He Shall Die. If A Man Have Intercourse With A Horse Or A Mule, There Is No Punishment. But He Shall Not Approach The King, And Shall Not Become A Priest... If A Pig Spring Upon A Man For Intercourse, There Is No Punishment.

A Library Is The First Step Of A Thousand Journeys, Portal To A Thousand Worlds.

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

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

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

It's About Me, Or People Wouldn't Be So Anxious To Keep Me From Knowing About It. The Absence Of Information Is Information. ~ Ender

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

Your Trust In Rationality Makes You Irrational.

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

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.

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

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.

He Walked Down The Corridor, Lined With His Soldiers, Who Looked At Him With Love, With Awe, With Trust. Except Bean, Who Looked At Him With Anguish. Ender Wiggin Was Not Larger Than Life, Bean Knew. He Was Exactly Life-sized, And So His Larger-than-life Burden Was Too Much For Him. And Yet He Was Bearing It. So Far.

Larger Than Life

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

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.

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.

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

Andrew Said You Were The Best Person He Ever Knew." "he Reached That Conclusion Before He Saw Me Raise Three Barbarian Children To Adulthood. I Understand Your Mother Has Six." "right." "and You're The Oldest." "yes." "that's Too Bad. Parents Always Make Their Worst Mistakes With The Oldest Children. That's When Parents Know The Least And Care The Most, So They're More Likely To Be Wrong And Also More Likely To Insist That They're Right.

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.

Perhaps I'm Hiding From Myself. Perhaps I Don't Want To Be What I'm Supposed To Be. Or Perhaps I Don't Want To Keep Living The Life I Already Started To Live.

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

Sometimes Good People Have To Do Terrible Things.

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

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.

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.

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.

Never Mind That The Story Had Turned Out To Be Lies And Foolishness—there Was Always Folks Stupid Enough To Say, Where There's Smoke There's Fire, When The Saying Should Have Been, Where There's Scandalous Lies There's Always Malicious Believers And Spreaders-around, Regardless Of Evidence.

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

Reasonable Argument Is Impossible When Authority Becomes The Arbiter.

Rumors Are The Sauce Of A Dry Life.

Valentine Had Long Ago Observed That In A Society That Expected Chastity And Fidelity, Like Lusitania, The Adolescents Who Controlled And Channeled Their Youthful Passions Were The Ones Who Grew Up To Be Both Strong And Civilized. Adolescents In Such A Community Who Were Either Too Weak To Control Themselves Or Too Contemptuous Of Society's Norms To Try Usually Ended Up Being Either Sheep Or Wolves- Either Mindless Members Of The Herd Or Predators Who Took What They Could And Gave Nothing.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Don't Lie To Me! Don't Seem So Normal When I Know You Have Cut Yourself Off From Me In Your Heart! If You Can Put On Our Affectionate Closeness Like A Mask, Then I'll Never Be Able To Take Joy In It Again.

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

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

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

Oops, I Thought. Oops Is An All-purpose Word Standing For Every Bit Of Profanity, Blasphemy, And Pornographic And Scatological Execration I Could Think Of.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

All The Common People Want Is To Be Left Alone. All The Ordinary Soldier Wants Is To Collect His Pay And Not Get Killed. That's Why The Great Forces Of History Can Be Manipulated By Astonishingly Small Groups Of Determined People.

It Will Hurt." Said Petra. "but Let's Make The Most Of What We Have, And Not Let Future Pain Ruin Present Happiness.

Good People Do Not Let Others Suffer Needlessly.

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

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.

Let's Fly Away And Live Forever

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

A Man Always Assumes That Others Are As Virtuous As Himself

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