Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth.

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.

Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes, ’ I’m unsure how to talk to you

They call us monsters because it makes it easier to hurt us. Bus monsters are people too.

Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.

I'm grateful for every scar, some pages turned, some bridges burned, but there were lessons learned

Some fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince... some start there.

I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence.

Too many players are so afraid to do anything that they seldom venture to do anything.

Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled---to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.

You knew when a woman loves you like that, she can love you with every card in the deck and then pull a knife across your throat the next morning.