Quotes from Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card ·  324 pages

Rating: (0.9M votes)


“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first.
- Ender ”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



“Remember, the enemy's gate is down.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the same person that I am today.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



“Early to bed and early to rise," Mazer intoned, "makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins—thoroughly.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I also remembered that you were beautiful."
"Memory does play tricks on us."
"No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



“You're a monster.
Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise?
No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“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.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“An enemy, Ender Wiggin," whispered the old man. "I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



“I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him. ”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I will remember this, thought Ender, when I am defeated. To keep dignity, and give honor where it's due, so that defeat is not disgrace. And I hope I don't have to do it often.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



“We have to go. I'm almost happy here.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together. ”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


“We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake."

"A habit. ”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game



Video

About the author

Orson Scott Card
Born place: in Richland, Washington, The United States
Born date August 24, 1951
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Goya’s savage verve, his harsh, brutal genius, captivated Des Esseintes. On the other hand, the universal admiration his works had won rather put him off, and for years he had refrained from framing them, for fear that if he hung them up, the first idiot who saw them would might feel obliged to dishonour them with a few inanities and go into stereotyped ecstasies over them.”
― Joris-Karl Huysmans, quote from Against Nature


“Never mind the truth. The past is what I say it is. That is the freedom of teaching the ignorant.”
― Steven Erikson, quote from Reaper's Gale


“There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Pay It Forward


“To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?”
― Pascal Mercier, quote from Night Train to Lisbon


“You're the type of guy who always snaps at some point and becomes a mass murderer!”
― Daniel Clowes, quote from Ghost World


Interesting books

Mademoiselle de Maupin
(831)
Mademoiselle de Maup...
by Théophile Gautier
Der kleine Prinz
(1M)
Der kleine Prinz
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
(17.5K)
Design of Everyday T...
by Donald A. Norman
Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories
(11.9K)
Sangre de tinta
(93.8K)
Sangre de tinta
by Cornelia Funke
A Dream of Red Mansions
(3K)
A Dream of Red Mansi...
by Cao Xueqin

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.