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It's a stupid leader who can't turn follower when somebody offers him a wiser course

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I don't care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won't get you out of this school.

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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 au...more

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That's what Ender has to understand. There really is evil in the world, and wickedness, and every brand of stupidity. There's meanness and heartlessne...more

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Your motivation has to be rock solid. You have to want it so bad that even th threat of death won't take it from you.

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All these uses a valid; all these reading of the book are "correct". For all these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators...more

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I didn't know how you'd get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.

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There is no society that does not highly value fictional storytelling. Ever.

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There's always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which is ...more

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The commercial work of today is the classics of tomorrow.

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We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their...more

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Oh no, real life is escape. The great terrors, the horrors--we hope--of your life come from reading fiction.

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Don't make fun of me!" Ender said. "I'm afraid I'm going crazy.

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He was cold and tired, but he ignored the cold. Around him stars shone. Some bright, some dim, the most constant things in life. Segundo smiled up at ...more

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We are only human when we are part of a community. ... I tried to isolate you, but it could not be done. I surrounded you with hostility; you took mos...more