Orson Scott Card Quotes

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

a lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past.

~ Orson Scott Card

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

~ Orson Scott Card

He had brought no possessions with him, he would take none away. There were none to have--everything of value was in the school computer or his own head and hands.

~ Orson Scott Card

Let's fly away and live forever

~ Orson Scott Card

It didn't matter he was brilliant and dedicated and good. He was a child. He was young.No he isn't, thought Ender. Small, yes. Bur Bean has been through a battle with a whole army depending on him and on the soldiers that he led. and he performed splendidly, and the won. There's no youth in that. No childhood.

~ Orson Scott Card

I didn't know how you'd get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

If only we could have talked to you, the hive-queen said in Ender's words. But since it could not be, we ask only this: that you remember us, not as enemies, but as a tragic sisters, changed into foul shape by fate or God or evolution. If we had kissed, it would have been the miracle to make us human in each other's eyes. Instead we killed each other. But still we welcome you now as guestfriends. 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.

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

«Linkeree does what he likes. He likes to be alone and think his own thoughts. No one is hurt by it.» Sara said, «Jason said that we are one people. Linkeree is saying he does not want to be part of us, and if he is not part of us then we are all less than we were.» They were both very wise. It would be so much easier for Kapock if they had only agreed with each other.

~ Orson Scott Card

Home was merely a dull ache in the back of his memory. A tiredness in his eyes.

~ Orson Scott Card

He had so much damn respect he wanted to scream.

~ Orson Scott Card

Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up.

~ Orson Scott Card

The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.

~ Orson Scott Card

I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn— that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you’re a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale. (Introduction to Ender's Game)

~ Orson Scott Card

If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine.And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.

~ Orson Scott Card

My father once told methat there are no gods;only the cruel manipulationsof evil peoplewho pretended that their power was goodand their exploitation was love.But if there are no gods;why are we so hungry to believe in them?Just because evil liarsstand between us and the godsand block our view of themdoes not mean that the bright halothat surrounds each liaris not the outer edges of a god, waitingfor us to find our way around the lie.

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

Vanya soon found that America might be an exciting place to arrive, but living there could become, in time, as boring as anything else.

~ Orson Scott Card

America. The enemy. The rival. The land of jeans and rock and roll, of crime and capitalism, of poverty and oppression. Of home and freedom.

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

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

~ Orson Scott Card

It isn’t the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the earth is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn’t want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive.

~ Orson Scott Card

That is the earth, he thought. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of a hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upwards from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets, and winds, and birds

~ Orson Scott Card

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

~ Orson Scott Card

I think Bonzo died. I dreamed about it last night. I remembered the way he looked after I jammed his face with my head. I think I must have pushed his nose back into his brain. The blood was coming out of his eyes. I think he was dead right then.

~ Orson Scott Card

Remember, I'm the only person her who's paid to be nice to you. But not too nice. Give me any lip and I'll break your face. OK?

~ Orson Scott Card

I was born with more power inside myself than I ever dreamed. But along with it there came no more sense than any other idiotic kid. Somewhere along in here I need to grow up into a man I can stand to live with. A man who doesn't just survive, but deserves to.

~ Orson Scott Card

These children had never looked death in the face and then chosen to live anyway.

~ Orson Scott Card

If words can be lethal weapons, I must provide them with an arsenal.

~ Orson Scott Card

But my eagerness to sacrifice little children in order to save mankind is wearing thin.

~ Orson Scott Card

And I began to suspect that the ultimate sacrifice isn't death after all, the ultimate sacrifice is willingly bearing the fullest penalty for your own actions.

~ Orson Scott Card

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

~ Orson Scott Card

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

He woke up and fought another battle and won. Then he went to bed and slept again and dreamed again and then he woke up and won again and slept again and he hardly noticed when waking became sleeping. Nor did he care.

~ Orson Scott Card

If he did not speak his tale, it grew dank and musty, it shrank inside him, while with the telling the tale stayed fresh and virtuous.

~ Orson Scott Card

I'll go from world to world until I find a time and place where you can come awake in safety. And I'll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time the can forgive you, too. The way that you've forgiven me.

~ Orson Scott Card

Aw, Poke, you poor, kind, decent, stupid girl. You saved me and I let you down.

~ Orson Scott Card