Orson Scott Card

Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than truth.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 1 (Easton Press, 1993)

...the child-size keyboard...

• Ender's Game
  • p. 4 (Easton Press, 1993)

This would not have a happy ending. So Ender decided that he'd rather not be the unhappiest at the end.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 5 (Easton Press, 1993)

He dropped. It took Ender by surprise—he hadn't thought to put Stilson on the ground with one kick. It didn't occur to him that Stilson didn't take a fight like this seriously, that he wasn't prepared for a truly desperate blow.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 5 (Easton Press, 1993)

They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow. I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 5 (Easton Press, 1993)

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Persuade him that he wants to come with us more than he wants to stay with her."

"How will you do that?"

"I'll lie to him."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then I'll tell the truth. We're allowed to do that in emergencies. We can't plan for everything, you know."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 12 (Easton Press, 1993)

"Tell me why you kept on kicking him. You had already won."

"Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they'd leave me alone."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 14 (Easton Press, 1993)

"The final step in your testing was to see what would happen when the monitor came off. We don't always do it that way, but in your case—"

"And he passed?" Mother was incredulous. "Putting the Stilson boy in the hospital? What would you have done if Andrew killed him, given him a medal?"

"It isn't what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It's why."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 14 (Easton Press, 1993)

Conscripts make good cannon fodder, but for officers we need volunteers.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 15 (Easton Press, 1993)

people do strange things for religion

• Ender's Game
  • p. 16 (Easton Press, 1993)

Your brother hates you because you are living proof that he wasn't good enough.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 17 (Easton Press, 1993)

"Peter isn't all bad, you know. He was the best we'd seen in a long time. We asked your parents to choose a daughter next—they would have anyway—hoping that Valentine would be Peter, but milder. She was too mild. And so we requisitioned you."

"To be half Peter and half Valentine."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 18 (Easton Press, 1993)

[The buggers] damn near wiped us out last time. They had us cold, outnumbered and outweaponed. The only thing that saved us was that we had the most brilliant military commander we ever found. Call it fate, call it God, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 18 (Easton Press, 1993)

With Ender, we have to strike a delicate balance. Isolate him enough that he remains creative—otherwise he'll adopt the system here and we'll lose him. At the same time, we need to make sure he keeps a strong ability to lead.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 20 (Easton Press, 1993)

"If he earns rank, he'll lead."

"It isn't that simple."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 20 (Easton Press, 1993)

He noticed how Graff and the other officers were watching them. Analyzing. Everything we do means something, Ender realized. Them laughing. Me not laughing.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 21 (Easton Press, 1993)

He did not know its significance at the time. Later, though, he would remember that it was even before he left Earth that he first thought of it as a planet, like any other, not particularly his own.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 22 (Easton Press, 1993)

There's only one boy on this launch with any brains at all, and that's Ender Wiggin. Take a good look at him, little boys. He's going to be a commander when you're still in diapers up there. Because he knows how to think in null gravity, and you just want to throw up.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 23 (Easton Press, 1993)

Another blow. Harder. It really hurt. Where was Graff?

Then it became clear. Graff had deliberately caused it. It was worse than the abuse in the shows. When the sergeant picked on you, the others liked you better. But when the officer prefers you, the others hate you...

If Graff was setting him up, there'd be no help unless he helped himself.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 24 (Easton Press, 1993)

"I thought you were my friend." Despite himself, Ender's voice trembled.

Graff looked puzzled. "Whatever gave you that idea, Ender?"

"Because you—" Because you spoke nicely to me, and honestly. "You didn't lie."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 25 (Easton Press, 1993)

My job is to produce the best soldiers in the world. In the whole history of the world. 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 dictator, and died for it. My job is to produce such a creature, and all the men and women he'll need to help him.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 25 (Easton Press, 1993)

"You made them hate me."

"So? What will you do about it? Crawl into a corner? Start kissing their little backsides so they'll love you again? There's only one thing that can make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you. I told them you were the best. Now you damn well better be."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 25 (Easton Press, 1993)

It isn't the world at stake. Just us. Just humankind. 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 humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, 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.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 26 (Easton Press, 1993)

Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 26 (Easton Press, 1993)

"We might do despicable things, but if humanity survives, then we were good tools."

"Is that all? Just tools?"

"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 26 (Easton Press, 1993)

The bottom bunk right by the door was the only empty bed. For a moment it occurred to Ender that by letting the others put him in the worst place, he was inviting later bullying. Yet he couldn't very well oust someone else.

So he smiled broadly. "Hey, thanks," he said. Not sarcastically at all. He said it as sincerely as if they had reserved for him the best position. "I thought I was going to have to ask for the low bunk by the door."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 29 (Easton Press, 1993)

Ordinarily, we let you elect your chief officer and install him in the lower bunk by the door, but apparently that position has been taken.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 30 (Easton Press, 1993)

If you don't like getting pushed around, figure out for yourself what to do about it. But I warn you—murder is strictly against the rules. So is any deliberate injury.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 30 (Easton Press, 1993)

With all his heart, Ender wanted to go home. What did any of this have to do with saving the world? There was no monitor now. It was Ender against the gang again, only they were right in his room. Peter again, but without Valentine.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 31 (Easton Press, 1993)

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.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 33 (Easton Press, 1993)

He felt good. He had won something, and against older boys. Probably not the best of the older boys, but he no longer had the panicked feeling that he might be out of his depth, that Battle School might be too much for him. All he had to do was watch the game and understand how things worked, and then he could use the system, and even excel.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 35 (Easton Press, 1993)

There were times when Ender was very angry. With Bernard, of course, anger was inadequate. It was the kind of person he was—a tormentor. What enraged Ender was how willingly the others went along with him. Surely they knew there was no justice in Bernard's revenge.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 36 (Easton Press, 1993)

Dap turned and left, and the room filled with laughter.

Bernard's attempt to be ruler of the room was broken—only a few stayed with him now. But they were the most vicious... Still, the tampering with the system had done its work. Bernard was contained, and all the boys who had some quality were free of him. Best of all, Ender had done it without sending him to the hospital. Much better this way.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 38 (Easton Press, 1993)

They laughed together, and two other Launchies joined them. Ender's isolation was over. The war was just beginning.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 39 (Easton Press, 1993)

I'll be clumsy for a while. Better get started.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 41 (Easton Press, 1993)

Bonzo was not such a fool that anger kept him from recognizing good sense when he heard it. Still, he couldn't let go of his anger immediately.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 63 (Easton Press, 1993)

Commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 73 (Easton Press, 1993)

Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 91 (Easton Press, 1993)

"I've been studying history," Peter said. "I've been learning things about patterns in human behavior. There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world. Thing what Pericles did in Athens, and Demosthenes—"

"Yes, they managed to wreck Athens twice."

"Pericles, yes, but Demosthenes was right about Philip—"

"Or provoked him—"

"See? This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, for instance. Bismarck. Lenin."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 91 (Easton Press, 1993)

The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. Everybody thinks Hitler got to power because of his armies, because they were willing to kill, and that's partly true, because in the real world power is always built on the threat of death and dishonor. But mostly he got to power on words, on the right words at the right time.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 93 (Easton Press, 1993)

"It's a long way between writing a newsnet column and ruling the world," Valentine reminded him. "It's such a long way that no one has ever done it."

"They have, though. Or the moral equivalent."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 98 (Easton Press, 1993)

Isolation is—the optimum environment for creativity.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 106 (Easton Press, 1993)

Knowing what to do with a toon is easy. It's getting them to do it that's hard.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 118 (Easton Press, 1993)

If you've ever got an advantage over the enemy, use it.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 145 (Easton Press, 1993)

Don't talk about it, do it!

• Ender's Game
  • p. 153 (Easton Press, 1993)

Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins—thoroughly.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 159 (Easton Press, 1993)

"They're still just talking. They have influence, but no power."

"In my experience, influence is power."

• Ender's Game
  • p. 161 (Easton Press, 1993)

Demosthenes was invited to take part in the President's Council on Education for the Future, a blue-ribbon panel that was designed to do nothing, but to do it splendidly.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 162 (Easton Press, 1993)

Real respect takes longer than official respect.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 162 (Easton Press, 1993)

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 163 (Easton Press, 1993)

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.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 170 (Easton Press, 1993)

It occurred to him that although he had never sought power, he had always had it. But he decided that it was a power born of excellence, not manipulation. He had no reason to be ashamed of it.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 172 (Easton Press, 1993)

Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 194 (Easton Press, 1993)

It had to be a child... Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.

• Ender's Game
  • pp. 208-209 (Easton Press, 1993)

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.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 219 (Easton Press, 1993)