Orson Scott Card Quotes

Five chickens do not make a cow.

No, the hurts of the mind were too strange, too invisible, too magical to hope for the same kind of tolerance and help from even the best of people. It frightens me, thought DeAnne. Why should I expect others to be better than I am?

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.

He thinks I'm like him, Mazer realized. That's what we do as humans; it's how we read minds. We assume that other people think like we do. So if we're nasty and suspicious and conniving we assume that everyone is as nasty and suspicious and conniving as we are.

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.

That's how we're going to face the end of the world? Reading a book?

Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.

As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes

Here it is, Bean: Those stones in India? Virlomi started it, of course. Got a message from her: >Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no email here. Stones are >mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name >BridgeGirl password not stepstool. At least I think that's what "stones are mine" means. And what does "password not stepstool" mean? That the password is "not stepstool"? Or that the password is not "stepstool," in which case it's probably not "aardvark," either, but how does that help?

Peter was waiting at the shuttle entrance. "Cut it rather fine, didn't we?" he said. "Is it eighteen hundred?" asked Theresa. "A minute before," said Peter. "Then we're early," said Theresa. She sailed past him, too, and on into the airlock. Behind her, she could hear Peter saying, "What's got into her?" and John Paul answering, "Later.

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.

The point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right
voice in the right place can move the world

See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet.

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.

He couldn't go into his army's barracks
he had long since learned that the best commanders stay away unless they have some reason to visit. The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening, to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk, and act, and think.

Christianity and Islam were willing to accept rewards in heaven for their sacrifice," said Valentine. "Then they were all selfish pigs,

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.

A broken clock is right two times a day.

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.

Speculative fiction by definition is geared toward an audience that wants strangeness, an audience that wants to spend time in worlds that absolutely are not like the observable world around them.

The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice.

Rigorous extrapolation, a gosh-wow love of gadgets, and mystical adventures in strange and mysterious places; every major stream in speculative fiction today can be traced back to authors who were writing before the publishing categories existed. From among the readers in the twenties and thirties who loved any or all of these authors arose the first generation of "science fiction writers", who knew themselves to be continuing in a trail that had been blazed by giants.

How short life is for fools.

The bones are hard and by themselves seem dead and stony, but by rooting into and pulling against the skeleton, the rest of the body carries out all the motions of life.

I don't want to destroy anybody. And I don't want war, either. I want the world to hold together. Is that so bad?

But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.
The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out.
That was the military.

There's always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which is consciously inserted. Partly because it won't reflect the storyteller's true beliefs, it will only reflect what he BELIEVES he believes, or what he thinks he should believe or what he's been persuaded of.
But when you write without deliberately expressing moral teachings, the morals that show up are the ones you actually live by. The beliefs that you don't even think to question, that you don't even notice
those will show up. And that tells much more truth about what you believe than your deliberate moral machinations.

Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.
Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did.
The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God.
I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own.

I cut the wood however I like, but it's the grain that decides the strength and shape of it. You can add and subtract memories from people, but it isn't just your memory that makes you who you are. There's something in the grain of the mind.

As often I have been a science fiction writer writing science fiction for the community of science fiction readers, I am also, for good or ill, an American writing American literature to an American audience. Most fundamentally, though, I am a human being writing human literature to a human audience.

Even the most introverted person alive is constantly hungry for human association

I am a Gordian knot. Don't unravel, just slice.

That's just one of the drawbacks when you love somebody so much greater than yourself, Miro told himself. I'll never know the difference. She'll come back and I'll be happy with all the time we have together and I'll never know how little time and effort she actually devotes to being with me. A diversion, that's what I am. Then

The best thing about my job, though, is stopping at the end of the day and rejoining the human universe.

If our happiness is the purpose of God," said Alai, "why are so few of us happy?

We're an ecological disaster."
"Exactly," said the expendable.

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There are maybe two or three thousand people in the world as smart as us, little sister. Most of them are making a living somewhere. Teaching, the poor bastards, or doing research. Precious few of them are actually in positions of power." "I guess we're the lucky few." "Funny as a one-legged rabbit, Val." "Of which there are no doubt several in these woods." "Hopping in neat little circles.

What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.

I'm never impossible. The most I ever allow myself is to be somewhat unlikely.

Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.

He pulled out a single half-blackened disc of bronze. "Money," he said. "You get it by working, and then you trade it for things you want."
"But it's so small," said Runnel.
"So's your wit," said the man, and turned away.

How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.

He can have friends. It's parents he can't have.

The trouble was, innovation never resulted in victory over the long term. It was too easy for the enemy to imitate and improve on your innovations.

Famous at high school is like being employee of the month at the sanitation department.

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.

Wishful thinking gives false gods to people who hunger for gods, but those who yearn for a world with no gods are no less likely to fall victim to their own wishful thinking.

I want to see the king," I said, after explaining who I was.
"Wonderful," said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. "I'm glad for you."
That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. "Why are you so glad?" I asked.
"Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant.

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.

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.

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.

(Rigg) had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, A man who speaks but one language understands none.

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.

Knowing at the same time that whatever people pretend to be, they become.

I came because I've spent my whole life in the company of the brother that I hated. Now I want a chance to know the brother that I love, before it's too late, before we're not children anymore.

Religion makes them crazy. Not a woman I ever met wasn't crazy with religion.

He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.

I think Russia agreed to it because they're facing a revolt of the Islamic States.

to be deceived. You know why I am here." "Ah. I guess this means Dap filed a report.

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.

Valentine could persuade other people to her point of view- she could convince them that they wanted what she wanted them to want. Peter, on the other hand, could only make them fear what he wanted them to fear.

Could see or hear. That was what Alai had given him; a gift so sacred that even Ender could not be allowed

Does a daughter judge her father?" whispered Qing-jao. "Of course she does," said Father. "Every day all people judge all other people. The question is whether we judge wisely.

He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant.

By deciding that they would study only that which could be verified under controlled conditions, they had merely limited their field of endeavor. Most truth lay outside the neat confines of science....

And it came down to this: 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 the very moment when I love them
"
"You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding.
"No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist.

You really are playing God." "I most certainly am not playing.

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

What a waste of time to be posthumously famous.

Being young is an 18 year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.

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.

[No single] explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, ALWAYS more to learn.

An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.'
Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.

Raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off.

How did I become the one to make this decision for everyone?

The enemy gate is down.

Firequencher raised his hand. I've been staying out of family conversations. Do I get credit for that?

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.

If you could make them feel as you can make me feel, then perhaps they could forgive you.

I looked for perfection, and I found something better.

You've lost faith in yourself? Isn't that rich? A god who's become a self-atheist!

Good people can't out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can't think of.

That was great. They're calling him Buttwatcher now. Just "Watcher" in front of the teachers, but everybody knows what he's watching.

Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in our lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same.

Stories are invented as you go along...

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?

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.

Human: That's stupid. Isn't there grass on both sides?

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.

The univers is statistically more likely to be ironic than not,

The problem was, the people who should shut up were the ones talking the most.

But I'm three times your age or more and my brain is worn out and full up. I don't have much room to tuck new things square inside; they just cling to the outside for a while and drop off.

Hive Queen: They never know anything. They don't have enough years in their little lives to come to an understanding of anything at all. And yet they think they understand. From earliest childhood, they delude themselves into thinking they comprehend the world, while all that's really going on is that they've got some primitive assumptions and prejudices. As they get older they learn a more elevated vocabulary in which to express their mindless pseudo- knowledge and bully other people into accepting their prejudices as if they were truth, but it all amounts to the same thing. Individually, human beings are all dolts.

Pequenino: While collectively...

Hive Queen: Collectively, they're a collection of dolts. But in all their scurrying around and pretending to be wise, throwing out idiotic half-understood theories about this and that, one or two of them will come up with some idea that is just a little bit closer to the truth than what was already known. And in a sort of fumbling trial and error, about half the time the truth actually rises to the top and becomes accepted by people who still don't understand it, who simply adopt it as a new prejudice to be trusted blindly until the next dolt accidentally comes up with an improvement.>

Pequenino: So you're saying that no one is ever individually intelligent, and groups are even stupider than individuals-- and yet by keeping so many fools engaged in pretending to be intelligent, they still come u

Then he was done. He pulled away, rolled onto his back. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're welcome," she said. She believed in answering what people meant, not what they said.

And because it was possible, there was a part of him that wanted to play it out, see where this path led. I

We have special voices for different people; our attitudes, our moods change depending on whom we are with.

So I don't even get a chance to learn before I'm being judged.

One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.

It was astonishingly light, to hold all the hope and future of a great race within it.

Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf.