Quotes from Shadow of the Hegemon

“It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never know why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even know themselves. Nobody understands anybody.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell.
Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it.
And it's delicious.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody.
And yet somehow we live together, mostly in peace, and get things done with a high enough success rate that people keep trying. Human beings get married and a lot of marriages work, and they have children and most of them grow up to be decent people, and they have schools and businesses and factories and farms that have results at some level of acceptability—all without having a clue what’s going on inside anybody’s head.
Muddling through, that’s what human beings do.
that was the part of being human that Bean hated the most.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“America's intellectual community has never been very bright. Or honest. They're all sheep, following whatever the intellectual fashion of the decade happens to be. Demanding that everyone follow their dicta in lockstep. Everyone has to be open-minded and tolerant of the things they believe, but God forbid they should ever concede, even for a moment, that someone who disagrees with them might have some fingerhold of truth.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“Sometimes, what's right is not peaceful or passive. What matters is that you do not hide from the consequences. You bear what must be borne.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“For it is in the millions of small melodies that the truth of history is always found, for history only matters because of the effects we see or imagine in the lives of the ordinary people who are caught up in, or give shape to, the great events.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“I don't know of a soul who doesn't maintain two separate lists of doctrines - the ones they believe they believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“Human beings are just machines, Petra knew that, machines that do what you want them to do, if you only know the levers to pull. And no matter how complex people might seem, if you just cut them off from the network of people who give shape to their personality, the communities that form their identity, they'll be reduced to that set of levers. Doesn't matter how hard they resist, or how well they know they're being manipulated. Eventually, if you take the time, you can play the like a piano, every note right where you expect it.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“I'm talking about the cycle of life. I'm talking about finding some alien creature and deciding to marry her and stay with her forever, no matter whether you even like each other or not a few years down the road. And why will you do this? So you can make babies together, and try to keep them alive and teach them what they need to know so that someday *they'll* have babies, and keep the whole thing going. And you'll never draw a secure breath until you have grandchildren, a double handful of them, because then you know that your line won't die out, your influence will continue. Selfish, isn't it? Only it's not selfish, it's what life is for. It's the only thing that brings happiness, ever, to anyone. All the other things--victories, achievements, honors, causes--they bring only momentary flashes of pleasure. But binding yourself to another person and to the children you make together, that's life. And you can't do it if your life is centered on your ambitions. You'll never be happy. It will never be enough, even if you rule the world." (Theresa Wiggin)”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“Knowing at the same time that whatever people pretend to be, they become.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies. To have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“Bean also saw how the man’s body moved inside his clothes, with a kind of contained strength that made his clothes seem like Kleenex, he could rip through the fabric just by tugging at it a little, because nothing could hold him in except his own self-control.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“I don’t know a soul who doesn’t maintain two separate lists of doctrines—the ones that they believe that they believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

“And were you punished? No. Why? Because you were rich."
"Money and talent aren't the same thing."
"That’s because you can inherit money that was earned by your ancestors," said Sister Carlotta. "And everybody recognizes the value of money, while only select groups recognize the value of talent.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Shadow of the Hegemon

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“I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.”
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