Home > Work > The Ender Quintet
1 " Who was more cursed, the one who died, unknowing until the very moment of his death, or the one who watched his destruction as it approached, step by step, for days and weeks and years? "
― Orson Scott Card , The Ender Quintet
2 " The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. "
3 " 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. "
4 " Val,” said Mother, “goodness trumps greatness any day.” “Not in the history books,” said Valentine. “Then the wrong people are writing history, aren’t they?” said Father. "
5 " We are contemplating the nature of desire,” said Han Fei-tzu. “Whose desire?” she asked. “And for what?” My desire for your bones to heal and become strong, so that they don’t snap at the slightest pressure. So that you could stand again, or even raise an arm without your own muscles tearing away chunks of bone or causing the bone to break under the tension. So that I wouldn’t have to watch you wither away until now you weigh only eighteen kilograms. I never knew how perfectly happy we were until I learned that we could not stay together. “My desire,” he answered. “For you. "
6 " we’ll go fishing.” “So it won’t be heaven for the fish.” “It’ll be hell for everybody. But with good moments.” “Just like our lives right now, "
7 " They feel very stupid and strange, the things going through your mind. You’re making us very tired, with all your thinking of stupid imaginary impossible things. "
8 " That’s how war is fought, in case any of you have foolish ideas to the contrary. You don’t fight with minimum force, you fight with maximum force at endurable cost. You don’t just pink your enemy, you don’t even bloody him, you destroy his capability to fight back. It’s the strategy you use with diseases. "
9 " The leader only has as much power as his followers give him. "
10 " Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant. But these are natural limitations inherent to the science. It is the artificial limitations that hamper us—and, through us, you. "
11 " Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, "
12 " 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. "
13 " we are strange indeed among all the plants and animals, who unlike us know their place, and if they think of God at all do not imagine him to be their kin, or themselves to be his heirs. "
14 " A pure soul must never grow attached to any one thing. "
15 " somewhere in his heart he knew that even a child is a real person, that a child’s acts are real acts, that even a child’s play is not without moral context. "
16 " the clock said 0340, and Ender felt groggy as he padded along the corridor behind Mazer. “Early to bed and early to rise,” Mazer intoned, “makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes. "
17 " I’ve got a pretty good idea what children are, and we’re not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren’t in armies, they aren’t commanders, they don’t rule over forty other kids, "
18 " I speak to everyone in the language they understand,” said Ender. “That isn’t being slick. It’s being clear. "
19 " When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn’t yet know that he needs your wisdom, you keep it to yourself. "
20 " That was the difference between her and the idiots of the world. They were all trying to look smart and keep their social standing. Whereas Valentine didn’t care about social standing, she cared about getting it right. Getting the truth—when the truth was gettable. "
