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

Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Ender, it turned into an argument.

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

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.

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

I’m not stupid!” In Bean’s experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

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...

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...

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...

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...

The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life… But they’ve learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong—for we humans do, when the...

It is my trade,” he said. “I work for the bean family, and every day there are deaths among the beans, mostly from thirst. They shrivel and die, they go blind in their one black...

You honor our humble abode,’ said Bean.’I do, don’t I,’ said Peter with a smile.

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...

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

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,...

Because here’s the thing―we don’t give a shit about fairness here. We’re soldiers. Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the...