Orson Scott Card Quotes

I don't know you, ma'am, and apparently I'm expected to die for you.

“Lookit that,” he said. “A lawyer who knows how to do something useful. That’s a miracle.”

“I see Alvin with a son. That what he want most.”
“I see him with a woman,” said Rien. “That is what he miss the most.”
“I see him kneeling by a child’s grave,” said Dead Mary. “That is what he fears the most.”

In a way, he lost some of himself, some of his knack, and therefore some of the choices he might have had in life. But in losing those, he gained so much more freedom, so much more power, that he was clear winner in the bargain.

She knew that her feelings toward Bean were completely different. No such dreams and fantasies. Just a sense of complete acceptance. She belonged with Bean, not the way that a wife belonged with a husband or, God forbid, a girlfriend with a boyfriend, but rather way the left hand belonged to the right. They simply fit. Nothing exciting about it, nothing to write home about. But it could be counted on.

It was his father who had shrunk, who no longer had the power of the giant, of the god, to enfold him and keep him safe.

She can't help her red skin, and she isn't heathen. In fact, she's a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.

It is a weak man who blames his failures on the strength of others.

You think my apology means I'm weak. But it doesn't. It means I am trying to learn how to be strong.

They won't be required to sacrifice anything in order to belong to your assembly. A religion that is all sweetness, but no light; all form, but no substance; all tradition, but no precept.

"Why won't anyone ever answer my questions?"
"Because you never stop asking them and especially because you keep asking them even when it's clear that nobody knows the answers."
"Well, how do I know that they don't know the answer unless I ask?"

Most of the things people say they remember they only imagine anyways.

You take responsibility for us all. Without ever waiting to be told.
So do all good people. That's what it means to be a good person.

She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.

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