Speaker for the Dead (Ender Quintet Book 2)

by Orson Scott Card

There was no living soul on Lusitania who really knew Novinha. But in this cave in Reykjavik, on the icy world of Trondheim, Ender Wiggin knew her, and loved her, and his eyes filled with tears for her.

For he loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.

“No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one’s life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.”

he knew that Ender was a destroyer, but what he destroyed was illusion, and the illusion had to die.

The fence, its shadow so dark in the minds of all who had lived within its bounds, now still and harmless, invisible, insubstantial. It was the miracle of the wafer, turned into the flesh of God in his hands. How suddenly we find the flesh of God within us after all, when we thought that we were only made of dust.

When you really know somebody, you can’t hate them.” “Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.”

“As long as you keep getting born, it’s all right to die sometimes.”