Orson Scott Card Quotes

That reminded John Paul of what Andrew had said when he was teaching him to play chess. “You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it’s all going to lead.” John Paul understood the principle as soon as Andrew explained it. But he stopped playing chess anyway, because he didn't care what happened to little plastic figures on a board of sixty-four squares.

“Am I hired?”
“There is no legal way you can get me out of paying that much of my taxes.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Wiggin. The tax laws are designed to trick people into paying more than they have to. That way the rich who are in the know get to take advantage of drastic tax breaks, while those who don’t have such good connections and haven’t yet found an accountant who does are tricked into paying ludicrously higher amounts.”

You are so intent that you believe only what you believe that you believe, that you remain utterly blind to what you really believe without believing that you believe it.

If I wanted to doubt then I could doubt endlessly. But at some point a person has to stop questioning and act, and at that point you have to trust something to be true. You have to act as if something is true, and so you choose the thing you have the most reason to believe in, you have to live in the world that you have the most hope in.

It has been my experience that the better a man you are, the more folks there are who resent you for it, and find occasion to get angry at you no matter how kindly meant your deeds may be.

You are exactly what you seem, and so you always assume that other people are, too.

Adolescents never understand that the best way to avoid notice is to behave normally.

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.

You think this because you are a nasty person by nature, Calvin, and you don't understand nice people. To you, the end of existence is to control things, and so you will never build anything, but rather will try to take control of what is already in existence. Your brother, though, is by nature a Maker, as you explain it; therefore he cares nothing about who rules, but only about what exists.

"'Waterloo was won,'" quoted Rackham, "'on the playing fields of Eton.'" "What the hell does that mean?" asked Carn Carby. "You never even went to Eton." "It was an analogy," said Rackham. "If you hadn't spent your entire childhood playing war games, you'd actually know something. You're all so uneducated."

He was growing up. Soon he would be a man. He wondered what that would mean. Surely he could not have more required of him as an adult that had been required of him as a child. There could not be more.

I've seen Australia and I've lived on an asteroid and I'd take the asteroid.

“You must be a prophet right enough,” said Alvin Junior, “cause I can’t understand a thing you said.”

“I want to know how many years I got.”
“Many,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Or few. All that matters is what you do with however many years you have.”

War was never so careful as to inflict suffering only where it was merited.