Orson Scott Card Quotes

Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.

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.

I doubt that America will come to Europe again. You'll be on your own against militant Islam.

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.

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.

Those eyes had seen people weep, and had cared, and had hurt them again anyway. It’s a look that no human eyes should ever have.

They’re so brave, " she said. "They’re all dead." "Only a coward would think of that, " she said scornfully.

You're a monster.Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.

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

You frighten me, when you say there isn't time.""I don't see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia.""But it keeps not ending.""So far, so good.

And the voice of God was in the whirlwind after all, said Thor

I knew her so well that I loved her, or maybe I loved her so well that I knew her. I didn't want to fight her anymore. I wanted to quit. I wanted to go home. So I blew up her planet.

There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you.

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

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

Alvin smiled back, and kissed her. "People talk about fools counting chickens before they hatch. That's nothing. We name them.

You're like, both like, Alexander the Great.'We can't both be Alexander.'Well sometimes I think you're two side of the same coin, and I'm the metal in between.

Ulysses was an elaborate prank, and our supposed intellectual elite continue to fall for it.

As god is my witness, it was never my intent to throw out the constitution. I thought it was hanging by a thread, and I could save it... You don't save it by cutting that thread. - President Nielson

It's called civilization. Women invented it, and every time you men blow it all to bits, we just invent it again.

In fact she’s a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.

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

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

...What I depend on is a vigorous audience that can discover sweetness and light, beauty and truth, beyond the ability of the artist, on his own, to create them.

History's got no bows on it, only frayed ends of ribbons and knots that can't be untied.

Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind, " Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.

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.

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.

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

Stories are invented as you go along...

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.

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

A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.

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.

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.

You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.

From you I can learn things that nobody knows.

I've learned all I'm ever going to learn from you.

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.

we have some good ideas here. But the only way to know if they’re workable is to try to make them fail. If we fail to fail, then maybe we’re on the right track.

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.

Grief, she reminded herself, is almost always for the mourner's loss.

He was cold and tired, but he ignored the cold. Around him stars shone. Some bright, some dim, the most constant things in life. Segundo smiled up at them, happy at least to be dying among friends.

Everything we do means something.

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

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.

If there were no goodness in people, mankind would still be confined to loping across a Savannah somewhere on Earth, watching the elephants rule, or some other more compassionate species.

You are the least-alone person I have ever known. Your heart has always included within it everyone who let you love them, and many who did not.

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.

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