A good commander, thought Ender, doesn't have to make stupid threats.

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.

Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.

I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.

There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.

Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the same person that I am today.

If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.

I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.

Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.

Kent had begun sleeping with his good eye open, for he knew the mark of sedition when he saw it. Even partway blinded, who could see it better?

Fitness is a luxury when you are busy!

The transformation from separation to unity, from conflict to peace, is the goal of all spiritual traditions.

A culture that denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superficial, concerned only with the external form of things. When death is denied, life loses its depth.

I've never been to the opera; I've only seen opera on DVD.

Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.

Everything ends, people move on, they don't look back. It's how they should be.

As I look back upon my life, I see that every part of it was a preparation for the next. The most trivial of incidents fits into the larger pattern like a mosaic in a preconceived design.

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.

It is in the nature of democracies, perhaps, that while visionaries are sometimes necessary to make them, once made they can be managed by mediocrities.