Frasi di Orson Scott Card

pagina 4

“Ah, Palicrovol, quando imparerai che la misericordia è buona quanto la persona a cui essa viene fatta? Hai risparmiato Asineth, che avrebbe dovuto morire; ora non risparmierai Orem Fianchi-Magri, chiamato Banningside, il cui buon cuore dovrebbe nascere centomila volte sulla terra. Sei come Asineth? Imparerai tutte le tue lezioni al contrario?”

“Il suo amore per la teatralità lo indusse quasi a rispondere con qualche eroico epigramma; ma aveva appreso fin da giovane che la teatralità non sostituiva una sicura vittoria. Perciò le morse il cuore con i denti della sua mano sinistra, per abbatterla subito con un colpo magico. Anche se avesse resistito, sarebbe stata troppo scossa per combatterlo, dopo.”

“Donnola — disse la Regina Bella — tu sai ora come sono stata servita. Dimmi… è giusta la mia vendetta?
— Ti è stato fatto un torto — disse la Principessa dei Fiori.
— È giusta la mia vendetta?
— Sei giusta a vendicarti.
— Ma la mia vendetta è giusta? — Bella sorrise, come la benedizione di un santo.
— Solo se ti vendichi di coloro che ti hanno fatto del male, e solo se la tua vendetta è uguale al torto subito.
— Suvvia, ho sentito dire che posso contare su Donnola Bocca-di-Verità per sentire il vero. Te lo chiedo per la quarta volta… sono giusta?
— No — disse la Principessa dei Fiori.
— Bene — disse Bella.”

“Allora scappò dal droghiere, stringendo in mano le sue poche monete di rame. Ma paura o non paura, voleva essere sicuro; così si fermò poco lontano, a guardare: e proprio come aveva pensato, Glasin riuscì a far stare tutta la sua mercanzia nel carretto, a parte la roba marcia. E per proteggere del cibo marcio, Orem avrebbe dovuto aspettare tutto il giorno, senza essere pagato. Non c'era onore a Inwit, neanche un briciolo, e questo lo rese più timoroso che mai della punta del pugnale che gli era stata puntata contro la pancia. Un pugnale aveva solo una punta, ma un traditore colpisce da qualsiasi parte, dicevano, e solo adesso Orem capiva quanto fosse vero”

“In order to learn, one must change one's mind.”

“We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.”

“I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.”

“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.”

“Into the the air, into the earth, into the fire, I am with you.”

“It will hurt." said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness.”

“An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.'

Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.”

“Science Fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees.”

“Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.”

“Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child… Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.”

“We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself a dictator, and died for it.”

“Faith doesn't mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.”

“Thank you for this, Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever, I need that now.”

“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender.”

“Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.”

“The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.”

“A broken clock is right two times a day.”

“The only way to retrieve a secret, once known, is to replace it with a lie.”

“Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?”

“People will always go. Always. They always believe the can make a better life than in the old world.
What the hell, maybe they can.”

“Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.”

“It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?”

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

“It's the most charming thing about humans. You are all so sure that the lesser animals are bleeding with envy because they didn't have the good fortune to be born Homo sapiens.”

“Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.”

“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.”

“When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish… Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.”

“All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better—
So why do I hate my life?”

“The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale.”