Orson Scott Card
American author working in numerous genres.
The Maker is the one who is part of what he makes.
Faithfulness had taken me by surprise. I wondered how long the phase would last.
You are mine, but you are not mine. I am yours, but you hardly know it.
It was his father who had shrunk, who no longer had the power of the giant, of the god, to enfold him and keep him safe.
I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man.
Once he had been so formidable that he was surrounded by enemies. Now even his enemies has lost interest in him. What clearer sign of failure could you find than that?
You are not what you seem.
So many people have said that that I'm beginning to think that's precisely how I do seem. What is it I seem to be that you have now discovered that I'm not?
Even the devil gives some justice to his victims, when they're beyond all help.
To be cut off from the land of the living, and yet not to be dead. How could I bear that?
That's how most men live, and don't even know it.
We were all victims of an oppressive system, but that mattered far less to us than our deep bonding with our owners.
Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was a gross insult.
“Everybody thinks they want to see the truth,” said Tenkswa-Tawa. “That’s one of the lies we tell ourselves.”
He exuded confidence without ever looking as is he wanted to make sure everyone else knew how confident he was.
Didn’t he know that when you work to destroy, you invite the Destroyer?
The barrier was only in my mind — which is true of this barrier as well. The more firmly I try to cross the barrier, the more firmly I'm rejected. Well, maybe it's the intention to cross the boundary that pushes me away.
How does he do it? How does he master people without bluster or bullying? How does he make people fear him or love him, not in spite of his ruthlessness but because of it?
Wasn’t that their natural right, to know the truth so as to be able to let the truth lead them to do good or evil, as they chose?
“I don’t have to be a gentleman,” said Balzac. “I am an artist.”
A dreamer, a good man, a kind man who cared less for his plan than for the people in it.
The others are even more likely to obey their god.
Which is?
It dangles between their legs.