Ender's Shadow (Shadow, #1)

by Orson Scott Card

This thing between girls and boys was something he just didn’t get.

And Sergeant would stand beside him, knowing the secret of his vengeance and telling no one, because that’s how Sergeant, that’s how the family, that’s how all the urchins of Rotterdam would survive.

Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn’t fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?

As long as he didn’t expect any direction to be down, he was fine.

Bean wondered vaguely what these boys’ lives had been like, when taking a nap made them think of being four years old.

“Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.”

you know Ender long enough, he just makes you want him to be proud of you.

“For you I’d get dysentery.” “Now that’s friendship.”

“When the messenger won’t tell you what the hell the message is, my trigger finger gets twitchy.

this job didn’t have many perks.

Authority came from him like breath.

We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.