Ender in Exile (Ender's Saga, #5)

by Orson Scott Card

My needs are simple and few, thought Valentine. Food. Clothing. A comfortable place to sleep. And no idiots.

The deep mind, the utter soul, the heartlessly compassionate man—able to love others so deeply he can understand them, yet remain so detached that he can use that knowledge to destroy them.

True believers in a cause often behaved in self-defeating ways because they expected other people to see the rightness of their cause if they just stated it clearly enough.

They were just a bunch of kids who had been on a long, difficult camping trip together, that’s how Ender saw them now. They had pulled together to make it back to civilization, but now they’d all go home to their families. They weren’t connected now. Except in memory.

It’s so very, very hard when you have no convictions except your lust to remain in power.

“Oh, Val,” said Father. “All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier.” “No greatness, then.” “Val,” said Mother, “goodness trumps greatness any day.”

We suddenly find ourselves afflicted with peace, you see. Always a disaster for those whose careers have not reached their natural apex.

What is love? Does my love for Ender mean that I do what I think is good for him, even if he asks me not to? Or does love mean I do what he asks, even though I think he would find being a figurehead governor a hellish experience?

I suspect we are exactly what he is hungry for. It is a mother who can provide the ineffable comfort to a wounded soul. It is a father who can say, “Ego te absolvo” and “well done, thou good and faithful servant” and be believed by the inmost soul.

There are so many powerful people in this world who refuse to see any vision they didn’t think of.”

Nothing has hurt me. I’m fine. Look at my smile. Don’t see how tired I am, or how glad I am to go, when they let me go.

I’ve done all I could for you, and had all I could receive from you, and now someone else is responsible for you all.

Is there something in women that makes us long to be humbled? Or is it something in human beings, that when we are overmastered, we rejoice in our subjection? That would explain a lot of history.

You can’t lead people you don’t know or at least understand.

If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.

The war ends. You come home. Then you deal with all the things that happened in the war.