In Valentine’s experience, normality was always a pretense, people acting out what they thought were their expected roles.
In fact she’s a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.
When the people elected a president like this one, who ran a campaign like the one he ran, it was hard to imagine what kind of scandal might bring him down.
We are the beasts that scheme, the predators that predict. We live by the lie, not by the truth; we study the truth only to shape more convincing lies that will bend other people to our will.
It was a strange, exhilarating feeling to be with people who didn’t want anything from you except your happiness, who were glad just to have you around.
And yet they obey and will continue to obey the orders that come to them. As in the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, these soldiers give up their lives, trusting that their commanders are using them well. While we sit safely here in these simulator rooms, playing an elaborate computer game, they are obeying, dying so that all of humankind can live.
Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.
Peter had even named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselves, and bully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best themselves, and flatter them.
Valentine could persuade other people to her point of view- she could convince them that they wanted what she wanted them to want. Peter, on the other hand, could only make them fear what he wanted them to fear.
I don’t want to destroy anybody. And I don’t want war, either. I want the world to hold together. Is that so bad?
It’s what I’m most afraid of. That I really am a monster. I don’t want to be a killer but I just can’t help it.
The enemy’s gate is down.
She longed for death now, not because she hadn’t loved life, but because death was now unavoidable, and what cannot be shunned must be embraced.
Everyone thinks they do, until they take a child into their heart. Only then do you know what it is to be a hostage to love. To have someone else’s life matter more than your own.
Why are they so stupid?’ asked Human. ‘Not to know the truth when they hear it?’ ‘They aren’t stupid,’ said the Speaker. ‘This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question. They never thought to question the idea that the original Speaker for the Dead died three thousand years ago, even though they know how star travel prolongs life.
Ah,’ said Speaker. ‘There’s so much that we don’t understand. And so much that you don’t understand. We should tell each other more.
What was that education? Question everything, but keep your word. Doubt everything, but never give others a reason to doubt you.
I don’t have any knack for making people cry, Ela,’ he answered softly. His voice was a caress. No, stronger, it was like a hand gripping her hand, holding her, steadying her. ‘Telling the truth makes you cry.
Early to bed and early to rise... makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.
As Ender had once said, most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy’s stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan.
Let me tell you about Ender. He’s all about beating the other guys. Not just winning-he has to beat the other guy into the ground or he isn’t happy.