Orson Scott Card

“Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.”

“For it is in the millions of small melodies that the truth of history is always found, for history only matters because of the effects we see or imagine in the lives of the ordinary people who are caught up in, or give shape to, the great events.”

“I believe what Jesus said was, 'I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive. But of you it is required that you forgive all men.”

“It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.”

“They have influence, but no power." "In my experience, influence is power.”

“My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man."When the planting's done," I said."Lord Barton is unaccustomed to waiting.""Then he should rejoice, for he'll learn something new today." I went back to the garden. Soon the servant left.”

“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.”

“Ethan Wyeth: I hope you're thirsty."Gideon Wyeth:"Why?"Ethan: "Cause your dumb and ugly, but I can do something about thirsty.”

“Then, as Father had trained him, Rigg thought past his feelings.”

“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”

“She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell.Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it.And it's delicious.”

“I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.”

“The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life. We don’t throw our forces away because every soldier is the queen of a one-member hive. 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.”

“I don't believe that there are aliens. I believe there are really different people.”

“You will soon learn that there ARE no strange stars, no alien skies"- No?"Only skies and stars, in all their varieties. Each one with its own flavour, and all flavours good"- Now YOU think like a tree. Flavours! Of skies!"I have tasted the heat of many stars, and all of them were sweet”

“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.”

“You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish, and nothing more.”

“That's why he hates you, because you didn't suffer when he tried to punish you.”

“They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think; what one remembers, another can also re-member. Why would they ever develop language? Why would they ever learn to read and write? How would they know what reading and writing were if they saw them? Or signals? Or numbers? Or anything that we use to communicate? This isn’t just a matter of translating from one language to another. They don’t have a language at all. We used every means we could think of to communicate with them, but they don’t even have the machinery to know we’re signaling. And maybe they’ve been trying to think to us, and they can’t understand why we don’t respond.”

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