Orson Scott Card
American author working in numerous genres.
You really are children. You have no idea how power works, or who has it, or what you can actually do with it.
Arthur had heard Peggy say that she didn’t wish for more comfortable furniture, because if the chairs were softer, company would be inclined to stay longer.
The dreamers always seem to think their dream is worth the price that other people will pay. They also delude themselves that they will control whatever evil they use to try to bring about their dream.
“I want to know how many years I got.”
“Many,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Or few. All that matters is what you do with however many years you have.”
“Our savior will resurrect us,” said Peggy, “but I haven’t noticed that Christians end up any less dead at the end of life than heathens.”
You know, if you hurt people enough, eventually they’ll all call you whatever you want. Maker. King. Captain. Boss. Master. Holy One. Pick your title, you can beat people into calling you that. But you don’t change yourself a bit. All you do is change the meanings of those words, so they all mean the same thing: Bully.
She don’t set no store to see a king. Her pa a king back in Africa, and they shoot him dead. Them Portuguese slavers show her what it mean to be a king—it mean you die quick like everybody, and spill blood red like everybody, and cry out loud in pain and scared—oh, fine to be a king, and fine to see one. Do them White folk believe this lie?
When people say perhaps it’s cause they’re lying. Either they don’t believe the thing they’re saying, or they do believe it only they don’t want to admit they do.
Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will — will strong enough that others bend to it for its own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth.
“I don’t plan to die for any cause,” said Jim Bowie. “Nor any man, excepting only myself. I know that ain’t noble, but it prolongs my days, which is philosophy enough for me.”
Wishful thinking gives false gods to people who hunger for gods, but those who yearn for a world with no gods are no less likely to fall victim to their own wishful thinking.
He had left home to get away, not to go toward anything. There was no greater freedom than that.
Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” when the saying should have been, “Where there’s scandalous lies there’s always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
Land was what they wanted, as if the mere ownership of dirt could turn a peasant into a squire.
What is this thing between women, like men are a joke that women all told each other long ago but men never get it.
I'm nobody's child.
You're mine now. Not my child, but mine, to miss you when you go, to look out for you, to hope you'll be careful.
Most of the things people say they remember they only imagine anyways.
It is a weak man who blames his failures on the strength of others.
Sometimes it felt to him as though he’s spent most of his life traveling, and never quite got to anywhere that mattered.
Then again, that might be as good a description of what life was supposed to be as anyone ever thought of. The only real destination was death, and our lives consisted of finding the most circuitous and pleasant path to get there.
[He] looked death in the eye and did not seem disappointed.