In philosophy class I think we finally decided that ‘good’ is an infinitely recursive term – it can’t be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it’s better than bad, though why it’s better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.
A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.
Firequencher raised his hand. “I’ve been staying out of family conversations. Do I get credit for that?
I came because I’ve spent my whole life in the company of the brother that I hated. Now I want a chance to know the brother that I love, before it’s too late, before we’re not children anymore.
I didn’t want to hurt him!” Ender cried. “Why didn’t he just leave me alone!
Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.
Well, I’m your man. I’m the bloody bastard you wanted when you had me spawned. I’m your tool, and what difference does it make if I hate the part of me that you most need? What difference does it make that when the little serpents killed me in the game, I agreed with them, and was glad.
He didn’t feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you’re in, you don’t worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here’s where you’ve got to find a way to survive and lying in bed boo-hooing doesn’t help much with that.
While you’re governing the colony and I’m writing political philosophy, They’ll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other’s room and play checkers and have pillow fights.
Everything we do means something, Ender realized. Them laughing. Me not laughing. He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn’t think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn’t find such a place in himself.
As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire...
A person is what he says and does; that’s how you learn whether his reputation was earned or manufactured.
Life is a suicide mission.
But I’m three times your age or more and my brain is worn out and full up. I don’t have much room to tuck new things square inside; they just cling to the outside for a while and drop off.
Oh, Pipo, I’d be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice” I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.
Test can’t messure what really matters.
I be crazy too, little buddy, but at least when I be craziest, I be floating all alone in space and the crazy, she float out of me, she soak into the walls, and she don’t come out till there be battles and little boys bump into the walls and squish out de crazy.
When you have faith in something a lot of other people believe then you a member of the church” said Ceas, “When you have faith in something nobody believes, then you a complete wacko.
Once you understand what people really want, you can’t hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can’t hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.
Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him.