Quote #49

I'm hurting you to make you a better solider in every way. To sharpen your wit. To intensify your effort. To keep you off balance, never sure what's going to happen next, so you always have to be ready for anything, ready to improvise, determined to win no matter what. I'm also making you miserable. That's why they brought you to me... So you could be just like me... But I'll be watching you, more compassionately that you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the solider you want to be.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. Is it some law of human nature that you inevitably become whatever your first commander was? I can quit right now, if that's so.
  2. For now that they could not be together, they must indefinitely be apart, and what had been sure and unshakable was now fragile and insubst…
  3. It's my greatest gift, I can see where the weak points are, I can see how to get in and use them, I just see those things without even tryi…
  4. I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind.
  5. We don't think like other children, do we...? We don't talk like other children. And above all, we don't write like other children.
  6. How kind of them. I wish, and they deliver.
  7. It was a kind of magic:; a sacrifice that somehow stilled the dark gods that hunted for his soul.
  8. I will remember this, when I am defeated. To keep dignity, and give honor where it's due, so that defeat is not a disgrace. And I hope I do…

All Orson Scott Card quotes