You don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t pushed. Nobody knows. I did it the way I did it, and it worked. Above all, it worked.

When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.

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

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

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...

We are wise to be cautious, but I suggest we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

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

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

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

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...

Everything was a test. Or a lesson. Or a punishment from which he was supposed to learn a lesson, on which he would be tested later, and punished if he hadn’t learned it.

He committed the crime of stupidity while under my command,” said Citizen.”Oh my,” said Rigg. “They’re handing out the death penalty for that these days?

This emotion I’m feeling now, this is love, right?””I don’t know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you’re with me?””Yes,” she said.”That’s influenza,” said Miro. “Watch for nausea or...

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

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...

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.

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....

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...

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

So the I.F. is spying on Earth.””Just as a mother spies on her children at play in the yard.””Good to know you’re looking out for us, Mummy.

If the followers of the Oversoul are kept blind, if they can’t judge the Oversoul’s purpose for themselves, then they aren’t freely choosing between good and evil, or between wise and foolish, but are only...

If you try and lose then it isn’t your fault. But if you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault.

In philosophy class I think we finally decided that ‘good’ is an infinitely recursive term – it can’t be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it’s better than bad, though why...

Oh no, real life is escape. The great terrors, the horrors–we hope–of your life come from reading fiction.

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.

The commercial work of today is the classics of tomorrow.

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.

Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth.

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...

—No me digas «No, Ender». He tardado mucho tiempo en darme cuenta de ello, pero créeme, me odiaba, me odio. Y todo se reduce a esto: en el momento en el que entiendo a mi...

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

With life. Rooter says that life is how God gives purpose to the universe.

…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.

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...

She had always thought that if only people could communicate mind-to-mind, eliminating the ambiguities of language, then understanding would be perfect and there’d be no more needless conflicts. Instead she had discovered that rather than...

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.

With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words,...

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?

Never take another human being to the third life, because we don’t know how to go.

Quing-Jao: I am a slave to the gods, and I rejoice in it.Jane: A slave who rejoices is a slave indeed.

Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.

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

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

Hive Queen: They never know anything. They don’t have enough years in their little lives to come to an understanding of anything at all. And yet they think they understand. From earliest childhood, they delude...

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.

O my son Absalom,’ Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. ‘my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die...

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

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...

I don’t care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won’t get you out of this school.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.