No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.
I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away
Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.
Do the gods of different nations talk to each other?...Is there some annual get-together where they compare each other's worshippers? Mine will bow their faces to the floor and trace woodgrain lines f...
And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?
A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.
I can see by your face that I'll never persuade you. And that's surprising, because usually you at least try to see my side."I can see your side," said Cecily. "I've got a much clearer view of it than...
Music isn't just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It's a need, a deep hunger; and when the music is right, it's joy. Love. A foretaste of heaven. A comfort in grief. Is it too much to think that...
The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as...
You made them hate me. Said EnderSo? What will you do about it? Crawl in a corner? Start kissing their little backsides so they'll love you again? There's only one thing that will make them stop hatin...
We have to go. I'm almost happy here.
The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet.
That was great. They’re calling him Buttwatcher now. Just Watcher in front of the teachers, but everybody knows what he’s watching.
So you love me, said Petra softly when the kiss ended.I'm a raging mass of hormones thet I'm too young to understand, said Bean. You're a female of a closely related species. According to all the best...
Please don't disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet.
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...
O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. 'my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, m...
I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn— that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones,...