Frasi di Orson Scott Card

pagina 6

“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”

“I have hope for you, if only because you're the only one left to hope for.”

“I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

“Bonzo, he pre-cise. He so careful, he piss on a plate and never splash.”

“One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

“Let me be loved like that, by a man who will not replace me with concubines when I'm old and ugly. Let me be loved by a man who loves God more than me.”

“Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.”

“Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.”

“If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you.”

“Ender understood more than she said. Manipulation of gravity was one thing; deception by the officers was another; but the most important message was this: the adults are the enemy, not the other armies. They do not tell us the truth.”

“Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.”

“You who speak languages, you are such liars.”

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a lie.” “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

“But I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind. Are we absolutely sure that we ought to win this war?”

“But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.”

“He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.”

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things.”

“If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.”

“I looked for perfection, and I found something better.”

“The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet.”

“A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.”

“Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for belonging.”

“Intellectual understanding does not always bring visceral belief.”

“Only stupid men trying to seem smart need to be with dumb women. Only weak men trying to look strong are attracted to compliant women.”

“With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.”

“If words can be lethal weapons, I must provide them with an arsenal.”

“If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine.

And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.”

“I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm watching. But I'm free. Because it's Ender's game.”

“… the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns being the keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept.”

“My father always said that government is like watching another man piss in your boot. Someone feels better but it certainly isn’t you.”