Orson Scott Card quote: "I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction"

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.
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Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf.
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In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in th...
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We humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to ...
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So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.
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What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing'...
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If only we were wiser or better people, perhaps the gods would explain to us the mad, unbearable thi...
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Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
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Of course, I also hear from critics who detest what I do, and while sometimes I feel rather proud of...
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Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books.
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...it seemed a part of her life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt ra...
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Are you the strongest of all men, so strong that you can be merciful to me, a weak woman? Here is th...
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It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.
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Of course they accused Marcão of having done it without provocation—that’s the way of torturers...
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I will remember this, thought Ender, when I am defeated. To keep dignity, and give honor where it's ...
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So you love me," said Petra softly when the kiss ended.

I'm a raging mass of hormones the...
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None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing.
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But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to a...
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Are you the strongest of all men, so strong that you can be merciful to me, a weak woman? Here is th...
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As long as you keep getting born, it's alright to die some times.
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So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it...
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Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to tr...
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This is the Speaker for the Dead? Judging someone by appearances?"
"Maybe I've fallen in love...
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[T]hat's the way of torturers of every age, to put the blame on the victim, especially when he strik...
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I didn't want to see you."
"They told me."
"I was afraid that I'd still love you."
"I...
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I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.
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the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It change...
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The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.
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I'm crazy," said Ender. "But I think I'm OK.
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Grief, she reminded herself, is almost always for the mourner's loss.
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The only way to retrieve a secret,once known, is to replace it with a lie.
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I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and ...
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Stories are invented as you go along...
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But if you caught my informant,' said Achilles, 'why in the world would Chamrajnagar—or Graff, if ...
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I need to find out if I'm as good at peace as I am at war
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I'll become exactly the tool you want me to be, said Ender silently, but at least I wont be fooled i...
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I love you Ender. More than ever. No matter what you decide.
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Don't launch it," said Bean into his microphone, head down. "Set it off inside your ship. God be wit...
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He didn't feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you're in, you don't worry about w...
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Once you get a brother, you don’t give him up easy.
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Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the t...
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And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?
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One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.
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Oh no, real life is escape. The great terrors, the horrors--we hope--of your life come from reading ...
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Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.
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What could go wrong... Doing some stupid impulsive thing that caused the death of drowthers was prac...
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Too many people in the American media have lost any concept of loyalty to their country -- if they e...
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Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that rede...
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It was just him and me. He fought with honor. If it weren't for his honor, he and the others would h...
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Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.
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Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be ...
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I hope I am remembered by my children as a good father.
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There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citize...
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I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values tha...
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Ulysses, obviously. It was an elaborate prank, and our supposed intellectual elite continue to fall ...
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In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in th...
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The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a...
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There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good', to...
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…I had seen the princess and let her lie there unawakened, because the happily ever after was so d...
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We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.
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We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake."

"A h...
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You're a monster.
Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?
No, just a medal. The budget isn't...
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There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can ch...
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Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the s...
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I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not lo...
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In order to learn, one must change one's mind
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Everyone is naked. Everyone wants to hide. But life is sweet. Let it go on.
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Most people I know are trying very hard to be good people ... that's how we define virtue,
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Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember―the enemy's gate is down.
...
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There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and foreve...
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I will never hurt you.
I will always help you.
If you are hungry
Ill give you my food...
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From you I can learn things that nobody knows.
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O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear ...
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Nero, you are an example to all the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, t...
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I’m not one to despise other people for their sins. I haven’t found one yet, that I didn’t say...
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You get all the pleasures of the puppeteer.
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Come into our home, daughters of Earth; dwell in our tunnels, harvest our fields; what we cannot do,...
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Ender understood more than she said. Manipulation of gravity was one thing; deception by the officer...
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I don't care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won't get you out of this school.
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How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.
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In the end it was only Peter who had something he could say from the heart.

"Am I the on...
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You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.
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Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with ...
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He walked down the corridor, lined with his soldiers, who looked at him with love, with awe, with tr...
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Everyone is naked. Everyone wants to hide. But life is sweet. Let it go on.
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The enemy's gate is down.
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Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes
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We've decided that your birthday present will be a car", said Marion.
Danny was touched. "But t...
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In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.'
What is it then?'
It is the onl...
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Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself too. Trying to understand why I...
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Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's s...
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because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one wil...
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If only we could have talked to you, the hive-queen said in Ender's words. But since it could not be...
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I'm not a liar, sir,' she said.
"'No, I'm sure you sincerely become whatever it is you're prete...
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If words can be lethal weapons, I must provide them with an arsenal.
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When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other...
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Keep this in mind - it only works because what's between you, that's real, that's what matters. Bill...
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As long as you keep getting born, it's alright to die some times.
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The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppe...
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If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter ho...
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The only people who think children are carefree are the ones who've forgotten their own childhood.
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From now on, you forget about gravity before you go through that door. The old gravity is gone, eras...
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There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good,' to beha...
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Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.
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With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as ...
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Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.
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Perhaps a physicist would know at once why this whole idea was absurd. But then, perhaps a physicist...
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Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Ma...
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Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children ...
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Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.
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Remember, the enemy's gate is down.
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I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.
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He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use ...
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Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for tho...
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Well, I'm your man. I'm the bloody bastard you wanted when you had me spawned. I'm your tool, and wh...
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There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good,' to behave in a...
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She worked her toes into the sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of ...
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Let's fly away and live forever
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Besides," said Suriyawong. "This was not a rescue operation."
"What was it, target practice? Ch...
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In a way she actually preferred Peter to other people because of this. He always acted out of intell...
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Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a ...
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All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better—
So why do I hate my life?
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Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit. But since adults always said i...
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You don't know how to love people. You only know how to own them. And because people will never act ...
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The only teacher that's worth anything to you is your enemy.
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With life. Rooter says that life is how God gives purpose to the universe.
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Ningún ser humano es indigno cuando se comprenden sus motivos. Ninguna vida deja de merecer la pena...
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Thrower started toward them at a trot, then remembered his dignity and walked the rest of the way. T...
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I came because I've spent my whole life in the company of the brother that I hated. Now I want a cha...
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This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, ...
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The computer is also not famous for having mercy.
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Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but tha...
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There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do ...
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No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the mo...
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Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Ender, it turned into a...
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What I want," he said softly, "is to stand in this meadow and walk in the light of the sun.
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The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life....
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Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the ...
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Poke gave him life. Ender gave it meaning.
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The criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them―noticing them―that was ...
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She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake...
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Humans mate with beings who challenge their supremacy. They have conflict between mates, not because...
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The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how fill...
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When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless...
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Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him.
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We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all th...
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It was possible, wasn't it, that he loved her, and that in this time of terrifying opportunity he wa...
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Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along--the sa...
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He knew he could always be smart later, if that turned out to be a better strategy. But once you adm...
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The other four houses yielded jewelry, wallets, credit cards, laptops, iPads and Kindles, even a cou...
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Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.
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Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins—thoroughly.
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I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classe...
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Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.
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Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it i...
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I listen to music constantly while writing.
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But in the meantime I became accustomed to the writing life and it would be hard to change now - par...
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God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal - t...
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Working is hard and distracts from having fun.
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I don't believe that there are aliens. I believe there are really different people.
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Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
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Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, ...
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Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, becom...
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Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possi...
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I also remembered that you were beautiful."
"Memory does play tricks on us."
"No. Your fac...
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I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I...
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The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything ...
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The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided...
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We have to go. I'm almost happy here.
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Ethan Wyeth: I hope you're thirsty."
Gideon Wyeth:"Why?"
Ethan: "Cause your dumb and ugly,...
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You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create...
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Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given.
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Our great civilizations are nothing more than social machines to create the ideal female setting, wh...
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Happiness can depend as easily on useless things as on useful ones.
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Hive Queen: They never know anything. They don't have enough years in their little lives to come to ...
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It was not right, thought Han Fei-tzu, for his wife to die before him: her ancestor-of-the-heart had...
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Others find humanity by looking in their own hearts. Only lost souls need to search for it outside t...
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Quing-Jao: I am a slave to the gods, and I rejoice in it.
Jane: A slave who rejoices is a slave...
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It's the most charming thing about humans. You are all so sure that the lesser animals are bleeding ...
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I realized that everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving gr...
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Eko brushed a tear from her eye, and Immo jeered at her, but father held up a hand. "Never mock a te...
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In order to learn, one must change one's mind
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Most people I know are trying very hard to be good people ... that's how we define virtue,
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It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.
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I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.
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For he loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest so...
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The enemy's gate is down.
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"Dread is the first and strongest of the...kinds of fear. It is that tension, that waiting that come...
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Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes
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[That wall] might be breached sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between...
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Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (an...
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Music isn't just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It's a need, a deep hunger; and when the musi...
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Parents always make their worst mistakes with their oldest children. That's when parents know the le...
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I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve b...
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I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm watching. But I'm free. Because it's ...
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He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.
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The highest beings of all are the ones who are willing to pay any personal cost for the good of thos...
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Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like ...
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When you walk on the face of a world, then forgiveness comes.
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Orson Scott Card

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