So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.

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.

I'll go, " he said."And that's safer because?""I'm a guy.""Right, and having a pair of dingle balls makes you invincible how?

I've noticed that my resolutions involve me not doing stuff that I wasn't going to do anyway so here's something more positive. I'm going to retrain as a Latin teacher in a provincial public school.

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

Preparing for the worst is an activity I have taken up since I turned thirty-five, and the worst actually began to happen.

I'm totally down with insurrection in the street. I've had a great time with that over the years. Insurrection in the voting booth is the other part of the equation.

I'm still exploring in a lot of ways. I don't know myself completely.

If you think marriage is going to be perfect, you're probably still at your reception.

Our government is just way too interested in mucking around in Silicon Valley by creating and enforcing rules based on little or no understanding of the consequences.

I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. Now we reckon them as bank-days, by some debt which is to be paid us, or which we are to pay, or some pleasure we are to taste.