Quotes by Orson Scott Card

“We humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entreched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.”

“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.”

“In order to learn, one must change ones mind”

“Dread is the first and strongest of the...kinds of fear. It is that tension, that waiting that comes when you know there is something to fear but you have not yet identified what it is. The fear that comes when you first realize that your spouse should have been home hours ago; when you hear a strange sound in the babys bedroom; when you realize that a window you are sure you closed is now open, the curtains billowing, and youre alone in the house.”

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at the bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.”

“You who speak languages, you are such liars.”

“It was just him and me. He fought with honor. If it werent for his honor, he and the others would have beaten me together. They might have killed me, then. His sense of honor saved my life. I didnt fight with honor... I fought to win.”

“If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.”

“As long as you keep getting born, its alright to die some times.”

“I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.”

“Your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.”

“Everyone is naked. Everyone wants to hide. But life is sweet. Let it go on.”

“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, and hold the hearts of others as the treasures most dear.”

“One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.”

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.

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

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.

Youre a monster.Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?No, just a medal. The budget isnt inexhaustable.

Peter, youre twelve years old. Im ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.