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.

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.

Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies.

The memory of the pain did not destroy the reality of the pleasure; grief did not obliterate joy.

All these uses a valid; all these reading of the book are “correct”. For all these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators, but as participants, and so have looked at the...

Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their...

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

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

As Sarah watched them (Abraham and Isaac) move briskly along, she thought of the whole journey behind her. Her childhood in the Ur-of-the North, the temple of Asherah, her father’s house, the Euphrates in flood...

When a brother is given the right to pass into the third life as a father, then he chooses his greatest rival or his truest friend to give him passage. You. Speaker—ever since I first...

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

Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him

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...

The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.

The kid is scary.

Valentine went back to class without answering. That night Demosthenes published a scathing denunciation of the population limitation laws. People should be allowed to have as many children as they like, and the surplus population...

We’ve decided that your birthday present will be a car”, said Marion.Danny was touched. “But the thing I can’t figure out is, why would I need a new car?””You can’t very well gate a girl...

I want to see the king,” I said, after explaining who I was.”Wonderful,” said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. “I’m glad for you.”That was all,...

And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

You’re not a human being until you value something more than the life of your body. And the greater the thing you live and die for the greater you are.

I know that you are wise. When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless of evidence…You believe that the story is true, because...

Music isn’t just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It’s a need, a deep hunger; and when the music is right, it’s joy. Love. A foretaste of heaven. A comfort in grief. Is it too much...

Others find humanity by looking in their own hearts. Only lost souls need to search for it outside themselves.

When you walk on the face of a world, then forgiveness comes.

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.

Oh, people get used to so many things,” said Vadesh, “if only they give them selves a chance.

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

But he meant well.

Issib wasn’t thrilled to see him. I’m busy and don’t need interruptions.” “This is the household library,” said Nafai. “This is where we always come to do research.” “See? You’re interrupting already.” “Look, I didn’t...

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...

Where loyalty bound creatures together, they became something larger, something new and whole and inexplicable.

In a way she actually preferred Peter to other people because of this. He always acted out of intelligent self-interest.

Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.

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

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

They were delicious.

It was not about physical strength, Wit reminded himself. It was 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. That’s what the SEAL instructors were looking for: men and women who could disregard the pleadings of the...

Faith doesn’t mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.

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