10 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Mistakes

Orson Scott Card quotes on mistakes

8. A strange thing happened then. The speaker agreed with her that she had made a mistake that night, and she knew when he said the words that it was true, that his judgment was correct. And yet she felt strangely healed, as if simply speaking her mistake were enough to purge some of the pain of it. For the first time, then, she caught a glimpse of what the power of speaking might be. It wasn't a matter of confession, penance, and absolution, like the priests offered. It was something else entirely. Telling the story of who she was, and then realizing that she was no longer the same person. That she had made a mistake, and the mistake had changed her, and now she would not make the mistake again because she had become someone else, someone less afraid, someone more compassionate.

51. I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind.

185. In [his] mind, madness. Thousands of competing contradictory impossible visions that make no sense all because they can't all fit together but they do fit together, he makes them fit together, this way today, that way tomorrow, as they're needed. As if he can make a new idea-machine inside his head for every new problem he faces. As if he conceives of a new universe to live in, every hour a new one, often hopelessly wrong and he ends up making mistakes and bad judgments, but sometimes so perfectly right that it opens things up like a miracle and I look through his eyes and see the world his new way and it changes everything. Madness, and then illumination. We knew everything there was to know before... Now we discover that there are so many ways of knowing the same things that we'll never find them all.

187. The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

228. Brilliant young people who were nevertheless silly with love-or youth, as if it made a difference.

514. It was like a bunch of children, doing something they knew they shouldn't ought to, and then their pa comes along and catches them at it. Having been caught in such mischief himself sometimes, he almost felt a little sympathy

601. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done.

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

1078. And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves? -Ender's Shadow

1097. 'The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them. -Xenocide