Philotic Web

They've got a thread in MTS for outside quotes, but I thought I'd start one here, because I'm rereading the Speaker books, and I'm finding some good ones.
The one that I love the most right now is this one.

Wang Mu: "Is that the saying of an old Master?"

"It's the saying of an old fat woman on a donkey," said Mu Pao. "And don't you forget it."

"I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves." - Andrew "Ender" Wiggin - Ender's Game

"The enemy's gate is down."

(Come on, people. Classic.)

"There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you." - Graff, Ender's Game

"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." - Valentine, Ender's Game

Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.
-SftD, pg 278

Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.
-CotM, pg 354.

"But I don't know a soul who doesn't maintain two separate lists of doctrine--the ones that they believe that they believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by. I'm simply one of the rare ones that knows the difference."
-Sister Carlotta, SotH, pg 90

...victory almost always went to the side with the greater power to inflict damage. Sometimes David kills Goliath, and people never forget. But there were a lot of little guys Goliath had already mashed into the ground. Nobody sang songs about those fights, because they knew that was the likely outcome. No, that was the inevitable outcome, except for the miracles.
-Ender's Shadow, pg 346

"We had classes in doing the impossible. I got A's."
-Ambul, Shadow Puppets, pg 53

"We had classes in doing the impossible. I got A's."
-Ambul, Shadow Puppets, pg 53

oo I liked that one too!

He could see Bonzo's anger getting hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him. - During argument with Bonzo after Ender practices with his old Launch.

Welcome to PWEB drgnshadow!

Have some gyoza

<...So you destroyed all but me. Now I understand you better. I've had all these years to study you. You are not as terrifyingly brilliant as wet thought.>
"Too bad. Terrifying brilliance would be useful right now."

-Hive Queen and Ender in Xenocide

"I can't do a weekly column," Valentine said. "I don't even have a monthly period yet."

"Well, I'm your man. I'm the bloody b****** you wanted when you had me spawned. I'm your tool, and what difference does it make if I hate the part of me that you most need? What difference does it make that when the little serpents killed me in the game, I agreed with them, and was glad."
-Ender

"The Wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them." ~ Xenocide


"Please don't disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet." ~Children of The Mind

"I'm not human Petra...and my species dies with me" ~ Bean (duh)

Damn right, everybody! Ender may have saved your asses against the buggers, but I'm the one who is going to save humanity's collective rectum from its own colostomy.

-Peter, SotH

"I know they took out Neptune"

-member of Jeesh (was he ever named?) EG

These are all from 'First Meetings' I thought they were cute... enjoy!


-"Part of the test," said Sillain, "Iis seeing how well you obey orders."
"Then I fail," Said John Paul

First Meetings: The Polish Boy

- "I don't know the answer," said John Paul, "but neither does anyone else in the room except you, so until you decide to tell us instead of engaging in this enchanting voyage of discovery in which you let the passengers steer the ship, it's naptime."

First Meetings: Teacher's Pest - John Paul

-He grinned. A woman who would say "badinage" to a man was rare - a tiny subset of the women who actually knew the word.

First Meetings: Teacher's Pest - John Paul

- Andrew looked around the office, "It says on that sign that you'll help me fill out my tax form."
"Yes."
"Help."

First Meetings: The Investment Counselor

"Do you want to know my most closely guarded secret? When we're alone together, just him and me, or me and Lini and him-when we're alone, I call him Papa, and he calls me Son." - Olhado - pp. 449

"I learned how to be a father from him, and I'm a damned good one." - Olhado - pp. 449

The two most famous quotes, at least to me, spoken in any of the Enderverse. I cried the first time I read those words, and cried as I typed them.

“It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.”
- Ender’s Game

“Order and disorder,” said the Speaker, “they each have their beauty.”
- Speaker for the Death

“Ignorance and deception can’t save anybody. Knowing saves them.”
- Speaker for the Death

“Your slick, Senhor Andrew, Speaker for the Death, you’re very clever. You reminded him of the Hive Queen, and speak scripture to me out of the side of your mouth.”
“I speak to everyone in the language they understand,” said Ender. “That isn’t being slick. It’s being clear.”
- Speaker for the Death

“Why are they so stupid?” said Human. “Not to know the truth when they hear it?”
“They aren’t stupid, “ said the Speaker. “This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe, and those that we never think to question. ”
- Speaker for the Death

Human was near them now, and he spoke a couplet from the Hegemon: “Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.”
- Speaker for the Death

Dom Cristão murmured to his wife, “They came for gossip, and he gives them responsibility.”
- Speaker for the Death

“We know you now. That makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Even Quim doesn’t hate you now. When you really know somebody, you can’t hate them.”
“Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.”
- Speaker for the Death

....only some...

"Listen, Wiggin, I don't want you, I'm trying to get rid of you, but don't give me any problems or I'll paste you to the wall."
-Bonzo

He was concerned, not about getting credit, but about getting the job done.


And Elena, my version's better.

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes."
--Mazer Rackham

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes."
--Mazer Rackham

How could I have forgotten that?

"All your base are belong to us."
Oh, sorry, wrong board..

"Be proud of yourself, Bonito, pretty boy. You can go home and tell your father, yes, I beat up Ender Wiggin, who was barely ten, and I were thirteen, and I had only six friends who helped me, and somehow we managed to defeat him, although he was naked and wet and lonely- Ender Wiggin is so dangerous and scary, that we've almost brought two hundred people to help us out." -One of the best quotes in EG, and an excellent teasing. (Ender to Bonzo)

"Same day ain't nobody doing two battles!"
"Ain't nobody beaten the Dragon Army day. This your big day to lose?"-EG (First C.Tom, Second Ender)

<I understand belief.>
<No--you desire belief.>
<I desire it enough to act as if I believed. Maybe that's what faith is.>
<Or deliberate insanity.>

"Didn't find the paper 'till you got back from the showers didn't you?"(Bean)
"Of course. I'm not as close to the floor as you."(Ender)
- Ender's Game, before the battle with Phoenix Army.

This is a longer one that I really like--I lent my EG book to a friend, who in turn bought the rest of the books, and she apparently cried reading this because it was so beautiful. I hadn't thought about it much at all when first reading CotM, but after re-reading it recently, I found it to be one of my favorites:

"I'm not a child and never was one, not in this body, thought Peter. So I don't know if I'm even capable of childish longings and the grand romances of adolescence. And from Ender I have this sense of comfortableness in love; it isn't grand sweeping passions that I even expect to feel. Will the kind of love I have for you be enough, Wang-mu? To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you, your energy as you look up at these towering mound-people, speaking to them as an equal even though every movement of your hands, every fluting syllable of your speech cries out that you're a child--is it enough for you that I feel these loves for you? Because it's enough for me. And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name."

-Children of the Mind, pp. 258

'I'm not stupid!' In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

- Ender's Shadow

"Thus, the common philisophical answer, free will doesnt exist. Only the illusion of free will, because the causes of our behavior are so complex that we cant trace them back. If you have one line of dominos, knocking each other down one by one, you can say. "This domino fell because that one pushed it." But if you were to have an infinite number of dominos, traceable back in an infinite number of directions you would say, "This domino fell because it wanted too." - Frget who it was, but its from Xenocide.

"The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill you are always subject to those who can and nothing and no one will ever save you." -Ender

A few of my favourites:

"The humans build their stupid fence to keep us out, but that is nothing. The sky is our fence!"
- Speaker for the Dead

"Somehow this ancient man is able to see the truth and it doesn't blind his eyes or drive him mad. I must listen to this voice and let its power come to me so I, too, can stare at the light and not die."
- Speaker for the Dead

"I was afraid I'd still love you"
"I hoped that you would."
"My fear, your wish--both granted."
- Ender's Game

Oh, there's one Bean quote I just love, but I cannot remember which book it comes from. I know it's one of the Shadow books, but that's it.

"You don't have to eat the entire turd to know it's not a crabcake." - Bean.

(I'm thinking Ender's Shadow...)

I'm almost certain that it's actually from Shadow of the Hegemon.

Page 91 in the paperback, I believe. (I love my Enderverse quote collection)

My personal favorite quote from not only ender's game but in general is:
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
Said by petra, Ender's Shadow pg 336.
originally said by Sir Walter Scott

Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.
-SftD, pg 278

Who said that? XD

"Be the shoe." -Bean (Ender's Shadow)
(Btw, if you re-read the story, you'll see that some later events in the book are somewhat forshadowed by Bean's dreams...pretty cool stuff)

Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.
-SftD, pg 278

Who said that? XD

It was one of the openings to a chapter where it has an excerpt from some writing. This one was from "San Angelo, Letters to an Incipient Heretic, trans. Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus Vos Ame Cristao, 103:72:54:2.