62 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Choice

Orson Scott Card quotes on choice

2. : I had seen the princess and let her lie there unawakened, because the happily ever after was so damnably much work.

6. The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make. God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal -- there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause.

15. Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you.

24. The screen went blank, and words appeared. Play again?

25. I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get.

31. We have to go. I'm almost happy here.

48. 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.

82. [This] isn't my home [she] felt his words like an accusation: you rooted yourself here without thought of whether I could live in this soil. But it's not my fault, she wanted to answer - you're the one who's leaving, not me.

90. They are too cruel a god for me to worship anymore

106. You're a fool. If people only react to the way that others treat them, then nobody is responsible for anything. If your sins are not your own to choose, then how can you repent?

111. There are worse reasons to die, than to die because you cannot bear to kill What about someone who can't kill, and can't die, and can't live, either? Don't deceive yourself. You'll do all three someday

119. I never thought id lose you again But I knew we had lost each other on the day you first loved [him]. Then you should have told me! I wouldn't have done it That's why I didn't tell you. But it isn't true ... You would have done it anyway. And I wanted you to. You've never been happier.

132. Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.

147. I choose to live in a universe that has some hope in it.

157. I just don't what to face her again. Because I love her and I fear her. Because I'm not sure whether I should help her or try to destroy her.

201. Us or them.

229. Nobody's rational. We all act because we're sure of what we want, and we believe that the actions we perform will get us what we want, but we never know anything for sure, and so all our rationalities are invented to justify what we were going to do anyway before we thought of any reasons.

232. Even gentle people recognize that sometimes the decision not to kill is a decision to die.

265. Somebody has to roll the dice. Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I'm not a bureaucrat, placing my career above the larger purposes I was put here to serve. I will not put the dice in someone else's hands, or pretend that I don't have the choice I have.

269. Now I have second-guess all my future decisions wondering how much my choices are influenced by the fact that this kid really pisses me off

299. God made us with death inside, and also with intelligence. We have our seventy years or so - perhaps ninety, with care - in the mountains of GA, a 130 is not unheard of, though I personally believe they are all liars. They would claim to be immortal if they thought they could get away with it. We could live forever, if we were willing to be stupid the whole time. Surely you're not saying that god had to choose between long life and intelligence for human beings! It's there in your own bible, Carlotta. Two trees of knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying.

302. Know, think, choose, do.

306. My hands are clean, but not because I wasn't prepared to bloody them.

313. I've seen Austratlia and I've lived on an asteroid and I'd take the asteroid.

329. If I had taken away the desire for violence then humanity would not have been humanity. Not that human beings need to be violent in order to be human, but if you ever lose the will to control, the will to destroy, then it must be because you choose to lose it. My role was not to force you to be gentle and kind; it was to keep you alive while you decided for yourselves what kind of people you wanted to be.

337. Just because you're a fatalist doesn't mean I want to die.

339. ...'The story the oversoul tells me fit's all the facts that I see. Your story, in which I'm endlessly deceived, can also explain all those facts. I have no way of knowing that your story is not true-but you have no way of knowing that my story isn't true. So I will choose the one that I love. I will close the one that, if it's true, makes this reality one worth living in. I'll act as if the life I hope for is real life, and the life that disgusts me-your life, your view of life-is the lie.'

353. Has life left you so hungry that you'll swallow even the poor imitation of love?

379. It's not as if she chose to do mental gymnastics beyond the reach of anyone she had ever met in person.

440. We all choose our own teachers, don't we? I wonder if our choice of teacher shows anything about what our lives will be

447. What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because [they] force us or because we're afraid they might force us?

448. I'll be dead and you'll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!

517. They didn't have to believe in you. They didn't have to choose to die. But they didn't know that's what they was choosing They knew. We always know. We don't admit it to ourselves, not until the very moment of death, but in that moment, we see all the life before us and we understand how we chose, every day of our lives, the manner of our death

524. In a way, he lost some of himself, some of his knack, and therefore some of the choices he might have had in life. But in losing those, he gained so much more freedom, so much more power, that he was clear winner in the bargain

530. You're lucky I took me a vow of nonviolence,' said mike fink, 'Or you'd be suffering some pain right now.

551. Was his very boyishness the reason he was chosen? In that case, was it not a virtue to be admired, and not a failing to be despised?

554. He was not happy. And, if Ivan was any judge of character, neither was Katerina. Relieved, yes, she seemed to be relieved. As if one great hurdle had been passed. But Ivan knew that this was nothing to her but a marriage for reasons of the state. She had grown up knowing such a thing would be needed. He had not. He always expected to marry for love, or at least by his own choice. He had hoped for a bride who would be proud to say the vows with him. This was dismal indeed, to know that she was merely doing her duty to king and country, to god and daddy

589. What does it matter if, by following my heart, I also fulfill someone else's plan?

619. At least her hormones liked it

634. There's a lot of guys around who are better for you than I am

651. If I don't do anything that also ruins lives Beginning with your own Maybe Because you need children. Don't you? I don't know if I could ever do that again. Now that I know what it does to you when you lose one. Is it worse than losing a parent? Yes Worse than losing yourself? I've never lost myself

730. How is it less bearable than that beautiful boy who wanted so badly to do the right thing that he did it all wrong, lost his chance, and now is caught in the sum of all his wrong turns? I got on the road they all wanted to take, and I reached the top, but it wasn't where I should have gone, I'm still that boy. I did not have to lie when I went home to her

735. I don't ever want to see you again. You've made me regret the one unregretable decision of my life - [her]. You've made me wish, somewhere in my heart, that id never married her. Which is like making me wish id never been born

736. But could he blame her for being glad that she didn't have to choose? Glad that she could have both?

749. The combination was irresistible even if he hadn't loved her desperately. (more than she loves me, he sometimes admitted to himself.) He did love her desperately, however, and while this did not mean that he utterly lost his own will, it did mean that he would go along with her, for a while at least, in almost anything. Even if she was a damned fool sometimes 'You're a damned fool sometimes I love you too'

819. Kyaren, I don't want to leave you Then don't It's because I love you that I want to leave If you love me, you'll stay' he had known it, from the moment she appeared in the door. He couldn't leave her. When the change came, it would come, and then it would be irreversible, and then he would leave because he loved someone else and there was something in him that made it impossible for him to love 2 people at once. But not the one person was Kyaren, and he could not leave her because she wanted him to stay. 'Ill hurt you You could not hurt me worse than leaving me now, for no reason

820. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.

822. Why are you at war with yourself? I want things that I do not want to want. Please leave me But why shouldn't you have what you want?

824. Josif told me. That he thought he was going to fall in love with you. Did you mind? Why should I mind? There's plenty of love, what should I care? I love both you and him, you know, and you love both of us, but he kept talking as if it were something that could only - as if once he loved you, he would have to stop loving me. He said that. He said that if he ever made love to you it would be. It would be what? It would be after he stopped loving me

856. Stop talking and kiss her, Moses With all due respect, Jethro, that's not for you to decide Stop talking and kiss me Now you, you get a vote

857. She wants to die, Aaron. Please try to constrain her so she doesn't take the rest of us with her' I don't want to die! I wasn't to live in freedom, like any of you!

860. That's fine for you to say. But when does the miracle start? Some people can't see miracles when they're right in the middle of them Better than seeing miracles that don't exist You're determined to stand entirely alone, aren't you? That's where I've always stood

874. We'll die heroically I'd rather live

899. For all the planning and plotting that I did before I acted, I know that I was shaped more by circumstance that by my own will I wonder sometimes if I'm not, after all, a piece in some other players game, following blindly his grand designs without ever knowing that my path along the board is only a feint, while the important matters are played out elsewhere by other men

929. Why have I made myself as solitary as the dead?

977. Do what I want. Well, that's great advice. But what if the thing I want most in all the world can't be done?

990. Do you realize what you're saying? You're saying, please take me out of heaven, god, and send me to hell

1003. It's the only way to save your life Did you ever ask me if I wanted my life to be saved?

1009. You had no choice No, but you'd be amazed at how often people who have no choice act as if they had one, and lose everything because they could not bear to do what had to be done

1010. The puppet, wishes to be free You are free. Stay and die, go and live - you have your choice What choice is that! What do you expect, an infinite selection? To have a choice at all is to be free - even when the choice is between two terrible things. Which is the most terrible, Jason? Which do you hate the most? Then choose the other and be glad

1017. If you don't hold on with at least one hand while you're balancing on only one foot up here, I'm going to throw you down myself to end the suspense

1031. For the first time Lared did not fear her and did not hate her, for the first time he understood what lay behind her choice, and though he thought that it was wrong, he realized it was not justice's fault