Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game Quotes

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.

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.

Is it some law of human nature that you inevitably become whatever your first commander was?

Colonel Graff: We won! That's all that matters.Ender Wiggin: No. The way we win matters.

Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff. Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived.

So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.

Ender began to eat, slowly and carefully, pretending not to notice he was the center of attention.

I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.

Let's fly away and live forever

It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

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.

He had so much damn respect he wanted to scream.

A good commander, thought Ender, doesn't have to make stupid threats.

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 one will ever save you.

Ender had come to feel a unity so strong that the word we came to his lips much more easily than I.

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.

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.

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

Just because they didn't know they were killing human beings doesn't mean they weren't killing human beings.

There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.

While you're governing the colony and I'm writing political philosophy, They'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's room and play checkers and have pillow fights.

Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.

When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: If one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end.

The classes were valuable, but the real education was the game.

It was the waiting and watching that cost the most. For during that time he had to endure.

Maybe that's who you are, what you remember.

I have hope for you, if only because you're the only one left to hope for.

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

Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself too. Trying to understand why I hate myself so badly.

who would expect less?" she said. " You're a Wiggin." " Whatever that means." He said. " It means that you are going to make a difference in the world.

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...

We don't punish the ones who fail. They just-don't go on,

No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.

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

For the first time in his life, a teacher was pointing out things that Ender had not already seen for himself. For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire.

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.

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.

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

In my experience, influence is power.

Carn Carby left, and ender mentally added him to his private list of people who also qualified as human beings.

For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire.

We need you to help us figure out how you can help us.

I would follow such beauty, said something inside Ender. I would see as those eyes see.

I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares.

But shouldn't they still act like children? They aren't normal. They act like--history. Napoleon and Wellington. Caesar and Brutus.

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.

I didn't want to hurt him!" Ender cried. "Why didn't he just leave me alone!

There are miracles even reactivity can't pull off, Ender