“For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“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.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Whoop-de-do," said Ram.
"What?"
"I'm celebrating."
"Was that irony or loss of mental function?" asked the expendable.
"Was that a rhetorical questions, a bit of humor, or a sign that you are losing confidence in me?"
"I have no confidence in you, Ram," said the expendable.
"Well, thanks."
"You're welcome.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“But Father has also taught him: Treat a man as if he had a fine reputation to protect, and he will usually endeavor to deserve it.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“She likes us,” said Umbo. “I know, I could feel it too,” said Rigg. “She’s really glad to have us here. I think she loves us like her own children.” “Whom she murdered and cut up into the stew.” “They were delicious.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“No one can know a false thing, one can only believe it with certainty until it is contradicted. (Page 7)”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Maybe I will do what I want with my life!
The only problem is that I have no idea what I want to do with it.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“A person is what he says and does; that's how you learn whether his reputation was earned or manufactured.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I know everything I need to know already," Rigg always said...
To which Father always replied,"See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet."
"So tell me," said Rigg.
"I would but you're too ignorant to understand the reasons why your ignorance is a fatal disease...”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“But I am designed to last forever," said the expendable, "if not interfered with."
"Isn't that nice? Expendable yet eternal. You'll be able to go back and observe any part of human history that you wish. Watch the pyramids being unbuilt. See the ice ages go and come in reverse. Watch the de-extinction of the dinosaurs as a meteor leaps out of the Gulf of Mexico."
"I will have no useful task. I will not be able to help the human race in any way. My existence will have no meaning after you are dead."
"Now you know how humans feel all the time.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“(Rigg) had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, "A man who speaks but one language understands none.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“We have discussed your definition, analyzed its ramifications to a reasonable depth, and accept it," said the expendable.
"Meaning I gave you what you wanted?"
"Ambition and desire are human traits. You gave us what we lacked.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Government is all show when it isn't murder in the dark ... or soldiers in the open.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“So that's it?" asked the expendable.
"Final decision," said Ram. "And it's the right one."
"Why do you think so?"
"Because we live or die, we'll learn something important from jumping into the fold. Thousands of future travelers will either follow us or not. But if we don't make the jump, we'll learn nothing, have no new options."
"A lovely speech. It has been sent back to Earth. It will inspire millions."
"Shut up," said Ram.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I had no idea we planned to be so ruthless."
"It was not publicized or even discussed with the political arm of the colonization program. Ruthlessness was necessary but wins no votes."
"But this is not our world, to treat however we want!"
"Visiting here as students of an alien evolutionary tradition would not be either cost-effective or, ultimately, successful. We would inevitably contaminate Garden, or worse yet, become contaminated and bring potentially deadly Gardenian life forms back to Earth. The three continental preserves will be sufficient to allow biologists to study alien life at some point in the future. And if you really thought we would colonize this world without making it 'ours', you'd be far too naive to command this expedition."
"I...didn't realize..."
"You didn't think about it at all," said the expendable. "The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community."
"And you aren't morally blind?"
"We see the moral ironies very clearly. We simply don't care.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“He committed the crime of stupidity while under my command," said Citizen.
"Oh my," said Rigg. "They're handing out the death penalty for that these days?”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“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.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I've thought of all the questions," said Father.
"That only means you've stopped trying to think of new ones.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I'm just saying that I...I regret that everybody else has nineteen chances, and only I am limited to a single chance for my genes to continue."
"Because you believe your genes would confer a great blessing upon the human race."
Ram thought about this for a moment, "I suppose that's what every adolescent male believes with his whole heart.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Saving the human race is a frantic one. Or a tedious one. It all depends on what stage of the process you're taking part in.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I know you know, and you know that I know that you know. It spirals on from there, so let's just assume the dot dot dot.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“We're an ecological disaster."
"Exactly," said the expendable.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I suppose this means you can swim after all. Or am I supposed to tow you?"
"If you really try," said Loaf, grinning, "you might not die.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Rigg," said Father, "you're so smart and so dumb at the same time that it almost takes my breath awway”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“Then, as Father had trained him, Rigg thought past his feelings.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
“I didn't know that empty rationalization was part of your programming," said Ram.
"We would not be fit companions for human beings without it.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Pathfinder
Orson Scott Card
Born place: in Richland, Washington, The United States
Born date August 24, 1951
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“I ask no paradise on high, With cares on earth oppressed,
The only heaven for which I sigh, Is rest, eternal rest.”
― Solomon Northup, quote from Twelve Years a Slave
“I don’t think humanity is noble,” I said. “Not in the least. It’s not just or fair on an intrinsic level. It’s not even good. But I kind of hoped we’d go out fighting the other guy.”
― quote from Worm
“He was a lovely man in many ways. But he kept on insisting on forgiving me when there was nothing to forgive.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito...”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from Reservation Blues
“... never brag about your expertise. Instead, wait for the opportunity to showcase your skills and watch all the jaws drop.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from The Empress's Tomb
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