Just because they didn’t know they were killing human beings doesn’t mean they weren’t killing human beings.

One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven’t seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they’re absolutely...

We have to go. I’m almost happy here.

I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do...

My father always said that government is like watching another man piss in your boot. Someone feels better but it certainly isn’t you.

In my experience, influence is power.

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...

I didn’t want to hurt him!” Ender cried. “Why didn’t he just leave me alone!

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...

I didn’t want to kill them all. I didn’t want to kill anybody! I’m not a killer! You didn’t want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me...

As the doctor treated the wound, Mazer said, ” I don’t care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won’t get you out of this school.

When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish…Do you think ‘Titanic’ would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.

As a child of privilege, no one is your friend. They will claim to be your friends, they will laugh at your jokes and invite you to their parties, but they do not like you....

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.

Are you all right, Sir?” asked Hezekiah.”Just fighting over old battles in my mind,” said John. “It’s the problem with age. You have all these rusty arguments, and no quarrel to use them in. My...

Colonel Graff: We won! That’s all that matters.Ender Wiggin: No. The way we win matters.

Besides,” said Suriyawong. “This was not a rescue operation.””What was it, target practice? Chinese skeet?””An offer of transportation to an invited guest of the Hegemon,” said Suriyawong. “And the loan of a knife.”Achilles held up...

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.

I can see by your face that I’ll never persuade you. And that’s surprising, because usually you at least try to see my side.”I can see your side,” said Cecily. “I’ve got a much clearer...

Mine mine mine. That was the curse and power of human beings—that what they saw and loved they had to have. They could share it with other people but only if they conceived of those...

When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless of evidence. Let it be the most obvious fabrication and you will still believe whatever...

You were the one who threatened us with an Inquisitor,” the Bishop reminded him. With a smile.The Speaker’s smile was just as chilly. “And you’re the one who told the people I was Satan and...

Because human nature never changes.

Andrew said you were the best person he ever knew.””He reached that conclusion before he saw me raise three barbarian children to adulthood. I understand your mother has six.””Right.””And you’re the oldest.””Yes.””That’s too bad. Parents...

The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening, to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk act and think.

Alai saw the tears but had the grace not to say so. “They’re fartheads, Ender, they won’t even let you take anything you own.” Ender grinned and didn’t cry after all. “Think I should strip...

Let’s fly away and live forever

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.

I steal,” Winkle said, with a smile that said I’m joking and a glint in his eye that said I’m not.

Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff. Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived.

Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.

He felt like part of himself had been taken away, an inward prop that was holding up his courage and confidence.

…You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you’re right, because in many ways this is the best audience...

Achilles acted as if he had already won, and because the other kids followed him, he had.

Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of mischief God uses it to serve his own Rigteous purposes.””So God uses wicked people as...

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

«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...

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.

Don’t make fun of me!” Ender said. “I’m afraid I’m going crazy.

There’s always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which is consciously inserted. Partly because it won’t reflect the storyteller’s true beliefs, it...

Order and disorder’, said the speaker, ‘they each have their beauty.

I saw what Andrew did in our family. I saw that he came in and listened and watched and understood who we were, each individual one of us. He tried to discover our need and...

I cut the wood however I like, but it’s the grain that decides the strength and shape of it. You can add and subtract memories from people, but it isn’t just your memory that makes...

He spent the afternoon alone in the streets.

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.

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...

Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they’ve been given.

What a waste of time to be posthumously famous.

A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.