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.

Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given.

We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.

And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.

And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

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

I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself.

Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon.

Parents always make their worst mistakes with their oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right.

The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.

I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.

Being young is an 18 year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.

Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.

We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.

The opposite of the happy ending is not actually the sad ending--the sad ending is sometimes the happy ending. The opposite of the happy ending is actually the unsatisfying ending.

You killed more people than anybody in history." "Be the best at whatever you do, that's what my mother always told me.

If you listen very carefully, you can hear the good fairy come in the night and leave our assignment for tomorrow.

It's as if every conversation with a woman was a test, and men always failed it, because they always lacked the key to the code and so they never quite understood what the conversation was really about.

Everybody dies. What matters is what you do between now and when it happens to you.

I didn't want to see you." "They told me." "I was afraid that I'd still love you." "I hoped that you would.

The enemy gate is down.

He loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.

What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.

It will hurt." said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness.

Into the the air, into the earth, into the fire, I am with you.

None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing.

In order to learn, one must change one's mind.

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.' Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.

I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.

Science Fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees.

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.

Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.

Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.

Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.

We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself a dictator, and died for it.

Thank you for this, Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever, I need that now.

The only way to retrieve a secret,once known, is to replace it with a lie.

People will always go. Always. They always believe the can make a better life than in the old world. What the hell, maybe they can.

It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?

I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.

Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.

Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender.

Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?

When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish...Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.

A broken clock is right two times a day.

Yesterday someone sent a message that was signed GOD! bernard said. really? dap said. i didn't know he was signed onto the system

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.