The other boys started to complain that pushing off walls was movement, not combat. “There is no combat without movement,” Ender said.
You can’t alter your DNA and meet that expectation, so get over it. You are what you are.
What an unfriendly country,” said Noxon. “Different time, different place,” said Wheaton. “We think we’re a very welcoming country. Generous and kind. Unless we don’t like your language or the way you look.
Time to repay old humiliations, is that it, Bean? ‘Of course,’ Ender said contemptuously. ‘I’m not as close to the floor as you are.
But my eagerness to sacrifice little children in order to save mankind is wearing thin.
Ender Wiggin must believe that no matter what happens, no adult will ever, ever step in to help him in any way. He must believe, to the core of his soul, that he can only do what he and the other children work out for themselves. If he does not believe that, then he will never reach the peak of his abilities.
Don’t we all manipulate people? Even if we openly ask them to make a choice, don’t we try to frame it so they’ll choose as we think they should?
As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But.
Five chickens do not make a cow.
No, the hurts of the mind were too strange, too invisible, too magical to hope for the same kind of tolerance and help from even the best of people. It frightens me, thought DeAnne. Why should I expect others to be better than I am?
One minute Ender is the beginning and end of the world, the best chance for a great man that I’ll ever have a chance to find. The next minute, he’s a gay little boy who shamed me. You judge hi according to whether or not he’s useful to you.
As for Peter – we didn’t even suggest a meeting, and so he didn’t have a chance to tell us to go to hell.
Now that she knew credit cards were valuable, Baba Yaga began to collect as many of them as she could.
The task of the tyrant is not to compel, but to persuade even the unwilling that compliance better serves their interest than resistance.
Until you know that you’re tougher than the enemy, you maneuver, you don’t commit to battle.
The snake began to unweave itself from the rug again, only this time Ender did not hesitate. He stepped on the head of the snake and crushed it under his foot. It writhed and twisted under him, and in response he twisted and ground it deeper into the stone floor. Finally it was still. Ender picked it up and shook it, until it unwove itself and the pattern in the rug was gone. Then, still dragging the snake behind him, he began to look for a way out.
It’s a stupid leader who can’t turn follower when somebody offers him a wiser course.
Why do I feel a song coming on?” said Bean. The sarcastic words slipped out of him unbidden.
A minor request,” said Mazer. “Let’s not refer to it as the training cage. ‘Training’ sounds laborious and regimented. Soldiers groan at the word. These men joined the IF to fight, sir. Let’s call it the Battle Room.
People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.