Orson Scott Card Quotes

609 Sourced Quotes

The barrier was only in my mind — which is true of this barrier as well. The more firmly I try to cross the barrier, the more firmly I'm rejected. Well, maybe it's the intention to cross the boundary that pushes me away.

Orson Scott Card
Arthur had heard Peggy say that she didn't wish for more comfortable furniture, because if the chairs were softer, company would be inclined to stay longer.

Orson Scott Card
You understand that the piggies are animals, and you no more condemn them for murdering Libo and Pipo than you condemn a cabra for shewing up capim." That's right," said Miro. Ender smiled. "And that's why you'll never learn anything from them. Because you think of them as animals.

Orson Scott Card
His vices were the vices of his time and culture, but his virtues transcended the milieu of his life.

Orson Scott Card
To expect wickedness from human beings is the best way I know of to avoid surprises. And when I am surprised, it's always pleasantly.

Orson Scott Card
Evil people naturally assume that you will use that power exactly as they would use it.

Orson Scott Card
Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.

Orson Scott Card
Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.

Orson Scott Card
Maybe she couldn't know who she was today. Maybe it was enough to know that she was no longer who she was before.

Orson Scott Card
I'm a terrible salesman, he finally said. I always tell the truth about what I'm selling, and then nobody buys it.

Orson Scott Card
Sometimes those who care for the whole community must act in a way that harms the individual. For a good man it never becomes easy and he avoids it when he can; but when people need him to be harsh, he will be harsh indeed, and he won't shrink from it, he'll do it with his own hand and let it be known what he does.

Orson Scott Card
I be crazy too, little buddy, but at least when I be craziest, I be floating all alone in space and the crazy, she float out of me, she soak into the walls, and she don't come out till there be battles and little boys bump into the walls and squish out de crazy.

Orson Scott Card
It never occurred to you that they might be flattering you, because you don't lie.

Orson Scott Card
Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be.

Orson Scott Card
Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.

Orson Scott Card
I wanted your songs.
You wanted my songs more than you wanted my happiness. So you took my happiness, and stole my songs.

Orson Scott Card
Do you speak Scorn and Mockery to everyone? Or just to your betters?

Orson Scott Card
Perhaps every writer who thoroughly creates a fictional world will inevitably create a mirror of his own time and yet also create a world that no one else but him has ever visited...

Orson Scott Card
The older you get, the more you believe in God, whatever face he wears.

Orson Scott Card
I will remember this, thought Ender, when I am defeated. To keep dignity, and give honor where it's due, so that defeat is not disgrace. And I hope I don't have to do it often.

Orson Scott Card
Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was a gross insult.

Orson Scott Card
The billion billion paths of his life lay open before him, waiting for his first choices, for the first changes in the world around him to eliminate a million futures every second.

Orson Scott Card
Doesn't love show its face when it satisfies the need of the loved one, for the loved one's sake alone?

Orson Scott Card
I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.

Orson Scott Card
If he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him? Is it just my pride that's wounded?

Orson Scott Card
You just refuse to leave them alone until they change their minds. Of their own free will.

Orson Scott Card
The seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Orson Scott Card
It was all your genes that made us geniuses, mom. said peter. we sure didn't get any from dad. i heard that. father said, not looking up from the news that was being displayed on the table while he ate it would've been wasted if you hadn't

Orson Scott Card
You're a monster. Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise? No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.

Orson Scott Card
She grunted. Nothing unusual?
That's right.
Well, if you ask me, that's pretty unusual right there, if a body was smart enough to notice it.

Orson Scott Card