Orson Scott Card
396 quotes
Biography
"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be."
"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them."
"I hope I am remembered by my children as a good father."
"If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault."
"Ethan Wyeth: I hope you're thirsty."Gideon Wyeth:"Why?"Ethan: "Cause your dumb and ugly, but I can do something about thirsty."
"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf."
"You're a monster.Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable."
"Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice."
"Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people."
"The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them."
"Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space."
"You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves."
"This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?""I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?""Yes,"she said."That's influenza,"said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours."
"We have to go. I'm almost happy here."
"Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price."
"You’re not a human being until you value something more than the life of your body. And the greater the thing you live and die for the greater you are."
"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. Food only looks good to a hungry man."
"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."
"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 really about."
"It will hurt."said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness."
"Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence."
"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."
"Miro, I'm so sorry. I always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and . . . now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement."It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live."
"I have hope for you, if only because you're the only one left to hope for."
"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."