Shadow of the Hegemon (Shadow, #2)

by Orson Scott Card

Looking great in a uniform wasn’t the only way to earn your place in the world.

What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody.

You keep thinking that death is the most terrible thing that can happen to a person, but to God, death just means you’re coming home a few moments ahead of schedule. To God, the dreadful outcome of a human life is when that person embraces sin and rejects the joy that God offers.

“You don’t have to eat the entire turd to know that it’s not a crab cake.”

to wage war you have to be able to sell your own people on the idea that either you’re fighting in self-defense, or you’re fighting because you deserve to win, or you’re fighting in order to save other people.

“Sometimes people with the least that is worth stealing are the most concerned with giving the appearance of having great treasures hidden away.”

“It isn’t lying to tell a bureaucrat whatever story it takes to get him to do his job properly.”

“That’s what parenting is,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “Indoctrinating your children in the social patterns that you want them to live by.

All the other things—victories, achievements, honors, causes—they bring only momentary flashes of pleasure. But binding yourself to another person and to the children you make together, that’s life. And you can’t do it if your life is centered on your ambitions. You’ll never be happy. It will never be enough, even if you rule the world.”

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies. To have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

“Sometimes you have to feed the tiger so it won’t devour you.”