“I want to see the king," I said, after explaining who I was.
"Wonderful," said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. "I'm glad for you."
That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. "Why are you so glad?" I asked.
"Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man.
"When the planting's done," I said.
"Lord Barton is unaccustomed to waiting."
"Then he should rejoice, for he'll learn something new today." I went back to the garden. Soon the servant left.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“I don't know what's going on in the world," he said. "Everything seemed so reasonable and scientific until I discovered my son was a fraud with the ability to hide my own memories from me. And now you come along. The captain at the gate told me you were executed and buried yesterday."
"He spoke to you? He didn't say a word to me," I said.
"Don't change the subject, young man. I'm accusing you of violating the laws of nature."
"Nature's virtue is intact. I just know some different laws.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“And I began to suspect that the ultimate sacrifice isn't death after all; the ultimate sacrifice is willingly bearing the fullest penalty for your own actions.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“I wonder sometimes if I'm not, after all, a piece in some other player's game, following blindly his grand designs without ever knowing that my path along the board is only a feint, while the important matters are played out elsewhere by other men.
But whether there's some grand design really matters little to me. My only hope was this: To see what might be, to believe that it should be, and then to do all I could to bring it to pass, whatever the cost. When a life spins out as joyfully as mine has done, then the price, one paid so painfully, is now recalled in gladness. I have received full value. Here among the shepherds, my cup is filled with the water of life; it overflows.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”
― Jean Webster, quote from Daddy-Long-Legs
“Oh to have you with me, to have you here, not to be alone, but to be with you, my beauty, you of all souls! You.”
― Anne Rice, quote from Pandora
“Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs, and every song recalls a thousand sorrows, and so they are infinite in number, and all the same.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Housekeeping
“He felt as though his heart were a bomb, a complicated bomb that would result in a simple explosion, wrecking the world without rocking it.”
― Nathanael West, quote from Miss Lonelyhearts / The Day of the Locust
“I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, quote from A Hero of Our Time
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.
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