Orson Scott Card Famous Quotes & Sayings
100 Orson Scott Card Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation.
Damn Dap and damn you too, sir, I know what I'm doing." "Do you?" "Better than anyone else." "Oh, that is obvious, since nobody else has the faintest idea what you're doing.— Orson Scott Card
How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.— Orson Scott Card
In order to learn, one must change one's mind.— Orson Scott Card
When Chveya was seven years old she had understood perfectly how the world worked. Now she was eight, and there were some questions.— Orson Scott Card
He's not a killer. He just wins ... Thoroughly— Orson Scott Card
You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it's all going to lead.— Orson Scott Card
It's not enough just to laugh at good fortune and say, 'Enough already.' You have to really mean it— Orson Scott Card
that you have enough. And because you mean it, you take the surplus and you give it away. Similarly, when bad fortune comes, you bear it until it becomes unbearable
your family is hungry, or you can no longer function in your work. And then again you say, 'Enough already,' and you change something. You move; you change careers; you let your spouse make all the decisions. Something. You don't endure the unendurable.
I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first.— Orson Scott Card
- Ender
My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man.— Orson Scott Card
"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.
Could you possibly be a little more incoherent?" asked Olivenko. "There are bits of this I'm almost understanding, and I'm sure that's not what you have in mind.— Orson Scott Card
Guils is the greatest weapon vecause its cuts rarely heal and it aims for the heart— Orson Scott Card
Love is finding that the things you like best about yourself are not in you at all, but in the person who completes you— Orson Scott Card
He dreamed, as human beings always dream - random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious mind tries to put together into coherent stories. Bean rarely paid attention to his own dreams, rarely even remembered that he dreamed at all. But— Orson Scott Card
He splashed into the water, his whole body, not with the reverent attitude of prayer, but with a desperate thirst; he buried his head under the water and drank deep, with his cheek against the cold stone of the riverbed, the water tumbling over his back, his calves. He drank and drank, lifted his head and shoulders above the water to gasp in the evening air, and then collapsed into the water again, to drink as greedily as before.— Orson Scott Card
It was a kind of prayer, though, he realized as he emerged, freezing cold as the water evaporated from his skin in the breeze of the dark morning.
I am with you, he said to the Oversoul. I'll do whatever you ask, because I long for you to accomplish your purpose here.
I'm on his death list, too." "Then why are you still alive?" asked Peter. "Because, contrary to widespread belief, Achilles is not a genius and he makes mistakes.— Orson Scott Card
I own the whole world, and folks haven't been keeping up too well on the payments.— Orson Scott Card
I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn't expect it to be a career because I didn't believe there was a way to make money as a playwright without being lucky and I didn't feel particularly lucky.— Orson Scott Card
I buy way too many books.— Orson Scott Card
And all I managed, barely, was endurance.— Orson Scott Card
When adults became defiant in public, no amount of evidence, however irrefutable, would make them change their minds.— Orson Scott Card
Whenever the law gets its hands on you, those who use the law to their own advantage will also turn it against you. Don't put your trust in the laws of men, Alvin. They were designed by strong men to improve their power over weaker ones.— Orson Scott Card
The power to kill is the only power that matters.— Orson Scott Card
-Enders game.
It's better to lose someone you love ... than to have no one to lose.— Orson Scott Card
The first of a thousand lies. Truth flowed to Micah Quill, was sucked in and disappeared, and emerged again looking ever so much like it used to, but changed subtly, at the edges, where none would notice, so that simple truth became a complicated fabric indeed, one that could wrap you up so tightly and close you off from the air until you suffocated in it.— Orson Scott Card
Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.— Orson Scott Card
An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.'— Orson Scott Card
Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.
Your dream is a good one. [ ... ] The desire that is the very root of life itself: To grow until all the space you can see is part of you, under your control. It's the desire for greatness.— Orson Scott Card
![Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: Your dream is a good one. [ ... ] The desire that is the very](https://www.greatsayings.net/images/orson-scott-card-sayings-by-orson-scott-card-30510.jpg "Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: Your dream is a good one. [ ... ] The desire that is the very")
Americans were all farmers and shopkeepers at heart ...— Orson Scott Card
Free will doesn't exist. Only the illusion of free will, because the causes of our behavior are so complex that we can't trace them back. If you've got one line of dominoes knocking each other down one by one, then you can always say, Look, this domino fell because that one pushed it. But when you have an infinite number of directions, you can never find where the casual chain begins. So you think, That domino fell because it wanted to.— Orson Scott Card
Ender stepped under the water and rinsed himself, took the sweat of combat and let it run down the drain. All gone, except they recycled it and we'll be drinking Bonzo's bloodwater in the morning. All the life gone out of it, but his blood just the same, his blood and my sweat, washed down in their stupidity or cruelty or whatever it was that made them let it happen.— Orson Scott Card
To have a choice at all is to be free - even when the choice is between two terrible things.— Orson Scott Card
He was not prepared to deal with my mistake, thought Jane, and he did not understand the suffering his response would cause me. He is innocent of wrong -doing, and so am I. We shall forgive each other and go on.— Orson Scott Card
It was a good decision, and Jane was proud of it. The trouble was, she couldn't carry it out. Those few seconds in which parts of her mind came to a halt were not trivial in their effect on her. There was trauma, loss, change; she was not now the same being that she had been before. parts of her had died. Parts of her had become confused, out of order ...
She discovered, as many a living being had discovered, that rational decisions are far more easily made than carried out.
The only way to retrieve a secret,once known, is to replace it with a lie.— Orson Scott Card
This was done to you by men and women whose only desire was to enslave you; they have succeeded so well that you are proud of your slavery.— Orson Scott Card
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.— Orson Scott Card
The reason for a woman's life," said Sarai, "is the same as the reason for a man's - so that she might have joy.— Orson Scott Card
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.— Orson Scott Card
You're a strange kind of boy," said Achilles. "I was not tested for normality before I was entrusted with this mission," said Suriyawong. "But I have no doubt that I would fail such a test.— Orson Scott Card
The only way to end things completely was to hurt him enough that his fear was stronger than his hate.— Orson Scott Card
He spent the afternoon alone in the streets.— Orson Scott Card
It's like communes - people with nothing are always willing to share.— Orson Scott Card
Dona Crista laughed a bit. "Oh, Pip, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice."— Orson Scott Card
I imagine. 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.
We don't admit it to ourselves, not until the very moment of death, but in that moment, we see all life before us and we understand how we chose, every day of our lives, the manner of our death.— Orson Scott Card
Anything that is possible to be believed is an image of truth.— Orson Scott Card
It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?— Orson Scott Card
If you try to look up my skirt, I'll poke needles in your eyes right through your eyelids while you're asleep.'— Orson Scott Card
'I'm looking for help, you give me nightmares, thank you so much.'
She was on the top step now, reaching up for a bin marked DRY BEANS. Rigg looked up her skirt, mostly because she told him not to, and saw nothing at all of interest. He could never understand why Nox and other women, too, were always so sure men wanted to see whatever it is they concealed under their clothes.
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.— Orson Scott Card
God lets the guilty live right among the good, hurting them all they want; he lets the tares grow amid the corn.— Orson Scott Card
That's what Father and Mother are, thought Nafai. They stay together, not because of any gain, but because of the gift. Father doesn't stay with Mother because she is good for him, but rather because together they can do good for us, and for many others.— Orson Scott Card
Anton: "You're asking me?"— Orson Scott Card
Sister Carlotta: "God not being convenient, I ask a fellow mortal.
It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.— Orson Scott Card
Darkness bound them closer than light.— Orson Scott Card
You're cultural supremacists to the core. You'll perform your Questionable Activities to help out the poor little piggies, but there isn't a chance in the world you'll notice when they have something to teach you.— Orson Scott Card
Since when do you have to tell the enemy when he has won— Orson Scott Card
An interesting side effect of the battle was that Ender emerged at the top of the soldier efficiency list. Since he hadn't fired a shot, he had a perfect record on shooting - no misses at all. And since he had never been eliminated or disabled, his percentage there was excellent. No one else came close. It made a lot of boys laugh, and others were angry, but on the prized efficiency list, Ender was now the leader.— Orson Scott Card
Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.— Orson Scott Card
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.— Orson Scott Card
Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him— Orson Scott Card
[Ruthie] ... if he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him?— Orson Scott Card
![Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: [Ruthie] ... if he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he](https://www.greatsayings.net/images/orson-scott-card-sayings-by-orson-scott-card-99082.jpg "Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: [Ruthie] ... if he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he")
I be crazy too, little buddy, but at least when I be craziest, I be floating all alone in space and the crazy, she float out of me, she soak into the walls, and she don't come out till there be battles and little boys bump into the walls and squish out de crazy.— Orson Scott Card
I'm not a liar, sir,' she said.— Orson Scott Card
'No, I'm sure you sincerely become whatever it is you're pretending to be.
History is an omlette. THe eggs are already broken.— Orson Scott Card
He was getting to the point that he didn't understand why tax attorneys didn't just kill themselves.— 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
He jumped at the Giants face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant's eye.— Orson Scott Card
Fatherhood to us was an act of passion, soon forgot; but not to Orem ap Avonap. Never guessing that the blond and happy farmer was no blood of his, Orem had taken a part of that simple man into himself and saved it for this time. At any time in the Palace he might run by, Youth on this shoulders or, as time went by, toddling along behind.— Orson Scott Card
But it does mean that she almost never witnesses lovers' quarrels, bedtime stories, classroom arguments, supper-table gossip, or bitter tears privately shed. She only knows that aspect of our lives that we represent as digital information.— Orson Scott Card
But if you caught my informant,' said Achilles, 'why in the world would Chamrajnagar - or Graff, if it was him - launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they'd risk a shuttle and it's crew just to catch me? I find that quite ... flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain.— Orson Scott Card
Women always said things like that, and it made him crazy. It's as if every conversation with a woman was a test, and men always failed it, because they always lacked the key to the code and so they never quite understood what the conversation was really about. If, just once, the man could understand, really comprehend the whole of the conversation, then the perfect union between male and female would be possible. But instead men and women continue to cohabit, even to love each other, without ever quite crossing over the chasm of misunderstanding between them.— Orson Scott Card
Evil people naturally assume that you will use that power exactly as they would use it.— Orson Scott Card
The world was full of locked doors, and he had to get his hand on every key.— Orson Scott Card
One of Ender's toonmates shook his head. You dumb as a thumb.— Orson Scott Card
Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but that he was far better than everyone else. That was the only way he could win respect and friendship. It made him a better soldier then he would ever have been otherwise. It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier.— Orson Scott Card
Bonzo, he pre-cise. He so careful, he piss on a plate and never splash.— Orson Scott Card
Mom," said Peter, "nobody thinks you're a lackwit, if that's what you're worried about."— Orson Scott Card
Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word? I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I ever suppose that I was a lackwit.
The trouble with coins is, when one face is up, the other face is down.— Orson Scott Card
It is easy to say that you can adopt the whole human race as your children, but it is not the same as living in a home with a child and shaping all you do to help him learn to be happy and whole and good. Don't live your life without ever holding a child in your arms, on your lap, in your home, and feeling a child's arms around you and hearing his voice in your ear and seeing his smile, given to you because you put it into your heart.— Orson Scott Card
I'm hurting you to make you a better soldier in every way. To sharpen your wit. To intensify your effort. To keep you off balance, never sure what's going to happen next, so you always have to be ready for anything, ready to improvise, determined to win no matter what. I'm also making you miserable.— Orson Scott Card
You make her sound - what? - mentally deficient?" "Yes. She was incapable of holding on to malice. A serious defect.— Orson Scott Card
THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF ORSON SCOTT CARD Experience Card's full versatility, from science fiction to fantasy, from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction.— Orson Scott Card
The truth is that good fantasies carefully limit the magic that's possible. In fact, the magic has to be defined, at least in the author's mind, as a whole new set of natural laws that cannot be violated during the course of the story. That is, if at the beginning of the story you have established that your hero can make only three wishes, you better not have him come up with a fourth wish to save his neck right at the end. That's cheating, and your reader will be quite correct to throw your book across the room and carefully avoid anything you ever write in the future. All speculative fiction stories have to create a strange world and introduce the reader to it - but good fantasy must also establish a whole new set of natural laws, explain them right up front, and then faithfully abide by them throughout.— Orson Scott Card
The loneliness of power.— Orson Scott Card
Call them stories. When things happen, we invent stories about them. About why they happened. That's all science is, and history - stories about why things happen or happened. They are never, never true - never complete and always at least a little bit wrong, and we know it. But they're true enough to be useful. I doubt our minds could even grasp the whole truth about anything - the nets of causality spread too wide to be held within a single mind. But the stories, the useful lies - we share those and pass them on and when we learn more we improve on them, or when we need different stories for new circumstances, we change them and pretend we always told them that way." Ender— Orson Scott Card
If they cannot forgive me my foibles, then they are not such good people, no?"...— Orson Scott Card
"But they do forgive your foibles. They would welcome your company, too. But if you joined them, you would not understand what they were talking about. You would not have had the experiences that bind them together. You would be an outsider, not because of any act of theirs, but because you have not passed along the road that teaches you to be one of them. You will feel like an exile from the beautiful garden, but it will be you who exiled yourself. And yet you will blame them, and call them judgmental and unforgiving, even as it is your own pain and bitter memory that condemns you, your own ignorance of virtue that makes you a stranger in the land that should have been your home.
All the others knew that he had a mind, knew that he was capable of understanding ideas. What will new people think when they see me? They'll see a body that's already atrophying, hunched over; they'll see me walk with a shuffling gait; they'll watch me use my hands like paws, clutching a spoon like a three-year-old; they'll hear my thick, half-intelligible speech; and they'll assume, they'll know, that such a person cannot possibly understand anything complicated or difficult.— Orson Scott Card
But my eagerness to sacrifice little children in order to save mankind is wearing thin.— Orson Scott Card
[T]he politically correct are above the rules of ordinary civility, once they have identified you as an unbeliever in their religion.— Orson Scott Card
![Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: [T]he politically correct are above the rules of ordinary civility, once they have identified you](https://www.greatsayings.net/images/orson-scott-card-sayings-by-orson-scott-card-146106.jpg "Orson Scott Card Sayings By Orson Scott Card: [T]he politically correct are above the rules of ordinary civility, once they have identified you")
(Rigg) had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, A man who speaks but one language understands none.— Orson Scott Card
Please don't disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet.— Orson Scott Card
It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.— Orson Scott Card
I also remembered that you were beautiful."— Orson Scott Card
"Memory does play tricks on us."
"No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore.
He was patient with their tendency to ignore him, and learned to make his proposals and suggest his plans through the few adults who listened to him, and let them present them as their own. He was concerned, not about getting credit, but about getting the job done.— Orson Scott Card
Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.— Orson Scott Card
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.— Orson Scott Card
I speak to everyone in the language they understand," said Ender. "That isn't being slick. It's being clear— Orson Scott Card
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.— Orson Scott Card
You guessed it! And you say you aren't creative!"— Orson Scott Card
"We did not guess anythiung. We deduced it from the plethora of data you provided us, both consciously and unconsciously."
"And yet you couldn't detect the irony in my enthusiasm."
"We detected it. As information, however, it was worthless.
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.— Orson Scott Card
Power will always end up with the sort of people who crave it.— Orson Scott Card
He found himself filled with joy, for now his existence had a meaning. He had a future, because he was part of a world that had a future, and instead of wanting to decide for himself and determine that future for everyone else, he knew that he would be glad just to touch some small part of it. To marry and give happiness to his wife. To have a child and give it the same love that his parents gave him. To have a friend and ease his burdedn now and then. To have a skill or a secret and teach it to a student whose life might be changed a little by what he learned. Why had he dreamed of leading armies, whichwould accomplish nothing, when he could do these miraculous small things and change the world?— Orson Scott Card
