“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

“We have to go. I'm almost happy here.”

“I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.”

“There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no on ewould save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; th...”

“The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save ...”

“You're a monster.Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.”

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”

“We have to go. I'm almost happy here.”

“There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no on ewould save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; th...”

“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs meto find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender,...”

“Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer”

“As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I've seen so many years moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my own human busyness. There is always that choice fo...”

“Nature allows one kind to kill another, it's part of the law ... you wonder if man might not be the most savage of all creatures. He's among the few that preys on nearly every other being, that con...”