Quotes from The Memory of Earth

Orson Scott Card ·  352 pages

Rating: (14.1K votes)


“That's what Father and Mother are, thought Nafai. They stay together, not because of any gain, but because of the gift. Father doesn't stay with Mother because she is good for him, but rather because together they can do good for us, and for many others.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth


“He splashed into the water, his whole body, not with the reverent attitude of prayer, but with a desperate thirst; he buried his head under the water and drank deep, with his cheek against the cold stone of the riverbed, the water tumbling over his back, his calves. He drank and drank, lifted his head and shoulders above the water to gasp in the evening air, and then collapsed into the water again, to drink as greedily as before.

It was a kind of prayer, though, he realized as he emerged, freezing cold as the water evaporated from his skin in the breeze of the dark morning.

I am with you, he said to the Oversoul. I'll do whatever you ask, because I long for you to accomplish your purpose here.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth


“Once these two had been joined together in love, or something like love; they had made two babies, and yet, only fifteen years later, the last tie between them was broken now. All lost, all gone. Nothing lasted, nothing. Even this forty-million-year world that the Oversoul had preserved as if in ice, even it would melt before the fire. Permanence was always an illusion, and love was just the disguise that lovers wore to hide the death of their union from each other for a while.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth


“Human is human,” said Issib. “But civilized—that’s the gift of the Oversoul. Civilization without self-destruction.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth


“Elemak pulled the shower cord before he soaped. The moment the water hit him he yowled, and then did his own little splash dance, shaking his head and flipping water all over the courtyard while jabbering “ooga-booga looga-booga” just like a little kid.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth



“How do men become manly, if not by putting it on as an act until it becomes habit and then, finally, their character?”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Memory of Earth


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

“I wanted … people to listen to the pulse of nature, to partake of the wholeness of life and not forget, under the pressure of their petty destinies, that we are not gods and have not created ourselves but are the children of the earth, part of the cosmos.”
― Hermann Hesse, quote from Peter Camenzind


“Vic didn’t mind at all being considered odd. In fact, he was proud of it in a country in which most people aimed at being exactly like everybody else.”
― Patricia Highsmith, quote from Deep Water


“The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 coined the term ‘meme’ for a unit of cultural imitation.”
― Matt Ridley, quote from The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves


“If you have seen my YouTube documentary that was the genesis for this book entitled The 2012 Enigma,1 my Web site, Divine Cosmos,2 or some of my television appearances, you probably know I do not believe our future is depressing, terrifying or cataclysmic.”
― David Wilcock, quote from The Source Field Investigations: The Hidden Science and Lost Civilizations Behind the 2012 Prophecies


“we could see manmade things. Colony things.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Half Way Home


Interesting books

Kiss the Girls
(287K)
Kiss the Girls
by James Patterson
Winesburg, Ohio
(26.2K)
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson
Intensity
(63.7K)
Intensity
by Dean Koontz
The Communist Manifesto
(78K)
The Communist Manife...
by Karl Marx
Survival in Auschwitz
(35.3K)
Survival in Auschwit...
by Primo Levi
Four: A Divergent Story Collection
(127K)
Four: A Divergent St...
by Veronica Roth

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.