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.

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

That’s what Ender has to understand. There really is evil in the world, and wickedness, and every brand of stupidity. There’s meanness and heartlessness and… I don’t even know which of them is me.” –...

In my dreams,” said Ender, “I’m never sure whether I’m really me.

The classes were valuable, but the real education was the game.

But most of those to whom Ender’s Game feels most important are those who, like me, feel themselves to be perpetually outside their most beloved communities, never able to come inside and feel confident of...

No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one’s life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them,...

Being here alone with nothing to do, I’ve been thinking about myself too. Trying to understang why I hate myself so badly.

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...

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....

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

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.

Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you’re good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if...

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

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

As I recall, St. Paul stood by and held the coats of the men who were stoning him (Stephen). Apparently he wasn’t a believer at the time. In fact, I think he was regarded as...

He woke up and fought another battle and won. Then he went to bed and slept again and dreamed again and then he woke up and won again and slept again and he hardly noticed...

It had to be a trick or you couldn’t have done it.

There was no doubt now in Ender’s mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no on ewould save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been...

I didn’t know how you’d get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.

We have to go. I’m almost happy here.

So the whole war is beause we can’t talk to each other.

While you’re governing the colony and I’m writing political philosophy, They’ll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other’s room and play checkers and have pillow fights.

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...

I think you don’t grow up until you stop worrying about other people’s purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself.

I’ll become exactly the tool you want me to be, said Ender silently, but at least I wont be fooled into it. I’ll do it because I choose to, not because you tricked me, you...

You’re bigger than I remember,” she said stupidly.”You too,” he said. “I also remember that you were beautiful.””Memory does play tricks on us.””No. Your face is the same, but I don’t remember what beautiful means...

When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: If one of us has to be destroyed, let’s make damn sure we’re the ones alive at the end.

[That wall] might be breached sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between them was the roots that had already grown low and deep, under the wall, where they could not...

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

The only teacher that’s worth anything to you is your enemy.

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

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

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...

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

I’ll go from world to world until I find a time and place where you can come awake in safety. And I’ll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time the can...