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Orson Scott Card Quotes

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If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.

If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.

Orson Scott Card
Men, Pigs, Democracy

Parents always make their worst mistakes with their oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right.

Orson Scott Card
Funny, Children, Mistake
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quintet”, p.20, Macmillan

Good people can't out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can't think of.

Orson Scott Card
Thinking, People, Evil
"Homebody". Book by Orson Scott Card, March 4, 1998.

It has been my experience that the better a man you are, the more folks there are who resent you for it, and find occasion to get angry at you no matter how kindly meant your deeds may be.

Orson Scott Card
Men, Resent You, Deeds
Orson Scott Card (2012). “Alvin Journeyman: Tales of Alvin Maker”, p.162, Hachette UK

Sometimes you have to trust people enough to let them succeed and love them enough to let them fail.

Orson Scott Card
Life, People, And Love
Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston (2014). “Earth Awakens”, p.348, Macmillan

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.

Orson Scott Card
Enemy, Defeat, Enders Game
Orson Scott Card (2010). “Ender's Game”, p.152, Macmillan

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

Orson Scott Card
Wise, Mistake
Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Ender Quintet”, p.607, Macmillan

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

Orson Scott Card
Inspirational, World, Enders Game
Orson Scott Card (2010). “Ender's Game”, p.90, Macmillan

You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.

Orson Scott Card
Art, Order, Know How
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Children of the Mind”, p.58, Macmillan

Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given.

Orson Scott Card
Military, Order, Decision
Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Ender Quintet”, p.89, Macmillan

Just because you believe it doesn't make it so.

Orson Scott Card
Believe
Orson Scott Card (2016). “Seventh Son and Red Prophet”, p.90, Macmillan

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.

Orson Scott Card
Errors, Essence, Training
Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Ender Quintet”, p.19, Macmillan

Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.

Orson Scott Card
Happiness, Pain, Worthy
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus”, p.394, Macmillan

We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all the incompleteness. We turn to fiction to have an author assure us that it means something.

Orson Scott Card
Live Life, Mean, Fiction

You spend your whole life grieving for those who haven't died yet.

Orson Scott Card
Grieving, Whole Life, Havens
"Alvin Journeyman". Book by Orson Scott Card, 1995.

Madness, and then illumination.

Orson Scott Card
Illumination, Madness
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quintet”, p.292, Macmillan

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.

Orson Scott Card
Writing, Editing, Space
Orson Scott Card (1996). “Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker”, p.33, Macmillan

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.

Orson Scott Card
Book, Writing, Heart
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Children of the Mind”, p.202, Macmillan

America's intellectual community has never been very bright. Or honest. They're all sheep, following whatever the intellectual fashion of the decade happens to be. Demanding that everyone follow their dicta in lockstep. Everyone has to be open-minded and tolerant of the things they believe, but God forbid they should ever concede, even for a moment, that someone who disagrees with them might have some fingerhold of truth.

Orson Scott Card
Fashion, Believe, Sheep
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Shadow of the Hegemon”, p.176, Macmillan

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.

Orson Scott Card
Funny, Work, Sarcasm
Orson Scott Card (2013). “Homebody: A Novel”, p.33, Harper Collins

Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies.

Orson Scott Card
Home, Enemy, Knows
Orson Scott Card (2009). “Hart's Hope”, p.79, Macmillan

In order to learn, one must change one's mind.

Orson Scott Card
Change, Learning, Order

Every day people judge all other people. The question is whether they judge wisely.

Orson Scott Card
People, Judging, Don't Judge Me

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.

Orson Scott Card
Children, Childhood, Today
Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Ender Quintet”, p.22, Macmillan

All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe.

Orson Scott Card
Believe, What Matters, Fiction
Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Ender Quintet”, p.1200, Macmillan

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