"You always back off at the exact moment when you're about to tell the other person exactly what she needs to hear."

Orson Scott Card Literature See all quotes by Orson Scott Card →

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“We can wash people in the water all we want, but we can never wash their parents out of their hearts.”

“How is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than clean, painless death?”

“We've seen the worst that men can do, pa, and been the worst that men can be. But that don't mean that someday we won't see the best, too. And if we can never be perfect after this, well, we can still be pretty good, can't we?”

“Last night Alvin just got mad, which she said would only guarantee that he’d stay stupid.”

“Once you have the gallows, you’ll find new reasons to hang people from it.”

“It is the essence of dignity to pretend to desire what you cannot prevent.”

Resonant Thoughts

"My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is tall and thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while Aunt Dahlia is short and solid, like a scrum half in the game of Rugby football. In disposition…"

— P. G. Wodehouse

Religion1881–1975

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"The music of Marian Anderson and other African-American artists has greatly enriched our quality of life and created one of our Nation's most treasured art forms. As universal and original expressions…"

— George W. Bush

Politics1824–1900

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"Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt t…"

— David Bowie

Music1947–2016

#Human Nature

"I have very strongly this feeling... that our everyday life is at one and the same time banal, overfamiliar, platitudinous and yet mysterious and extraordinary."

— Bryan Magee

Philosophy1930–2019

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