Orson Scott Card quotes - page 20

Religion isn't always pretty. Especially viewed from the outside, by an unbeliever. (Orson Scott Card)
What the White man had won with so much blood and dishonesty was not the living land of the Red man, but the corpse of that land. It was decay that the White man won. It would turn to dust in his hands, Alvin knew it. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Coincidence is just the word we use when we have not yet discovered the cause. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Having never been in control of his own life, his idea of freedom was simply to break free. View quote
Orson Scott Card
They are beautiful monsters... And when they live in a network of peace and hope, when they trust the world and their deepest hungers are fulfilled, then within that system, that delicate web, there is joy. That is what we live for, to bind the monsters together, to murder their fear and give birth to their beauty. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Lolla-Wossiky is left like a White man then. Cut off from the land. Ground crunching underfoot. Branches snagging. Roots tripping. Animals running away. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Justice could be cruel, and crueler yet necessity, but mercy was the cruelest thing of all. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Lookit that,” he said. "A lawyer who knows how to do something useful. That's a miracle. View quote
Orson Scott Card
The White man never guessed at what the Red man saw and heard and felt. The White man brought death and emptiness to this place. The White man cut down wise old trees with much to tell; young saplings with many lifetimes of life ahead; and the White man never asked, Will you be glad to make a lodgehouse for me and my tribe? Hack and cut and chop and burn, that was the White man's way. Take from the forest, take from the land, take from the river, but put nothing back. The White man killed animals he didn't need, animals that did him no harm; yet if a bear woke hungry in the winter and took so much as a single young pig, the White man hunted him down and killed him in revenge. He never felt the balance of the land at all. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Was it worth it? To lose part of who he had been in order to live free? Perhaps this new self was better than the old. View quote
Orson Scott Card
I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science.” "In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.” "He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion. (Orson Scott Card)
Very bad thing, killing little boy. But maybe Red man knows about whisky-Red, very thirsty, making crazy. Not like killing man to take his house or his woman or his land, like White man all the time. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Denmark nursed that anger and it kept him free. View quote
Orson Scott Card
It's plain that if I married you for brains I was plumb cheated. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Every terrible thing in the world was caused by a whole combination of things. But everybody wanted to narrow it down to one cause-and not even the real one. Much better to have one cause-one person to punish. Then the unbearable could be borne. View quote
Orson Scott Card
I immediately felt so comfortable there. Or if not comfortable, at least willing to bear the discomforts because they fit the awkward places in my heart. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Road poured out into a place of meadows and a few White man's buildings. Lots of wagons. Horses posted and tied, grazing on the meadow grass. Sounds of metal hammers ringing, chopping of axes in the wood, screech of saws going back and forth, all kinds of White-man forest-killing sounds. A White man's town. View quote
Orson Scott Card
He would rather lose his power for doing right, than keep his power by doing wrong. Because he loves his people more than he loves his office. View quote
Orson Scott Card
What sort of arrogance did she have, even to imagine reaching back into the past and making changes? Who am I, she thought, if I dare to answer prayers intended for the gods? View quote
Orson Scott Card
Faithfulness had taken me by surprise. I wondered how long the phase would last. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Not that human beings need to be violent in order to be human, but if you ever lose the will to control, the will to destroy, then it must be because you choose to lose it. My role was not to force you to be gentle and kind; it was to keep you alive while you decided for yourselves what kind of people you wanted to be. (Orson Scott Card)
Adolescents never understand that the best way to avoid notice is to behave normally. View quote
Orson Scott Card
He was wild the way a mistreated dog becomes wild, not because it loves freedom, but because it has lost trust. View quote
Orson Scott Card
Peggy chose her words to be true, and therefore beautiful, and therefore good. View quote
Orson Scott Card
You speak metaphorically, I hope,” said Peggy. "I hope not,” said Becca. "Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. View quote
Orson Scott Card