Frasi di Orson Scott Card

pagina 5

“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”

“Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.”

“I don't care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won't get you out of this school.”

“The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice.”

“I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.”

“Your trust in rationality makes you irrational.”

“Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.”

“This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.”

“As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.”

“Grief, she reminded herself, is almost always for the mourner's loss.”

“If desire did not dim the brain, nobody would ever get married, drunk, or fat.”

“because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”

“Nobodys life ever goes according to plan.
So why do we keep on planning?
Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become.
And fail.
I don't say 'fail'. I saw we aim and miss. But we still hit something.”

“Where loyalty bound creatures together, they became something larger, something new and whole and inexplicable.”

“Maybe she couldn't know who she was today. Maybe it was enough to know that she was no longer who she was before.”

“there were crimes and quarrels, alongside kindness and cooperation; there were people who loved each other and people who did not; it was a human world.”

“The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.”

“Human: That's stupid. Isn't there grass on both sides?”

“Today, Mr. Darcy is a vampire.”

“We've devoted our lives to learning about them!" Miro said.

Ender stopped. "Not from them.”

“So I want to ask you a hypothetical question.

My favorite kind. Next to rhetorical ones. I can nap equally well through either kind.”

“I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.”

“Poke gave him life. Ender gave it meaning.”

“Then you're dead, too, sweet little sister.'
Oh, yes,' said Valentine. 'They'll believe that. "I didn't know it would kill Andrew. And when he was dead, I didn't know it will kill Valentine too.”

“Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself too. Trying to understand why I hate myself so badly.”

“Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.”

“Order and disorder', said the speaker, 'they each have their beauty.”

“Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't the will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never cease to exist.”

“It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.”

“Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.”