Speaker for the Dead (Ender Quintet Book 2)

by Orson Scott Card

“There’s no blame in this. You were children then, and children are cruel without knowing better. You wouldn’t do that now. But now that I’ve reminded you, you can easily see an answer. You called him a dog, and so he became one. For the rest of his life. Hurting helpless people. Beating his wife. Speaking so cruelly and abusively to his son Miro that he drove the boy out of his house. He was acting out the way you treated him, becoming what you told him that he was.” You’re a fool, thought Bishop Peregrino. If people only react to the way that others treat them, then nobody is responsible for anything. If your sins are not your own to choose, then how can you repent?