Orson Scott Card citáty

strana 13

„Nemusíš sníst celé hovno, abys poznala, že to není piškotový dort.“

„Budoucnost je sto tisíc nitek, zatímco minulost je tkanina, kterou nelze utkat znovu.“

“If he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him? Is it just my pride that's wounded?”

“It was not love at all, really, but rather a yearning for the honor and respect of the other men that held them. Pride, then… Indeed, all their connection with each other at this moment was tied up with the respect they felt they were earning by their actions.”

“When you have enough money the law is a reed that will always bend your way.”

“Even the devil gives some justice to his victims, when they're beyond all help.”

“Everybody thinks they want to see the truth,” said Tenkswa-Tawa. “That’s one of the lies we tell ourselves.”

“He knew her too well to see her from the distance that pity requires. He loved her because he admired her. For bearing without complaint the burden the queen put on her. For still being gentle and loving when she had ample reason to be bitter.”

“Maybe what we really want is for our children to be the dominant ones! Maybe I'm trying to see my own ambitions fulfilled in them, and that would be wrong, so I should be content with what they are.”

“That reminded John Paul of what Andrew had said when he was teaching him to play chess. “You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it’s all going to lead.” John Paul understood the principle as soon as Andrew explained it. But he stopped playing chess anyway, because he didn’t care what happened to little plastic figures on a board of sixty-four squares.”

“To expect wickedness from human beings is the best way I know of to avoid surprises. And when I am surprised, it’s always pleasantly.”

“You looked so intense. Whatever you were saying, you seemed to mean it, and it wasn't amusing at all. Started quite a fashion. People keep looking for purpose now. Complicates everything.”

“She did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her.”

“Living with a god is not what it's cracked up to be. They think their women should be grateful just to have them around.”

“Why is doubt the one thing we're never skeptical of? We question other peoples' beliefs, and the more sure they are the more we doubt them. But it never occurs to us to doubt our own doubt. Question our own questions. We think our questions are answers.”

“Where do you draw the line between a humble man who knows his own weaknesses but tries to act out virtues he hasn’t quite mastered yet, and a proud man who pretends to have those virtues without the slightest intention of acquiring them?”

“More than likely, mother would simply go enigmatic on him, give him one of her inscrutable smiles, and tell him that if he didn't already understand, he never would.”

“Religion makes them crazy. Not a woman I ever met wasn’t crazy with religion.”

“She did love him, you know… It was a selfish, possessive love, but it was all she knew how to give.”

“Sunday morning, he decided, is designed to let sinners have a sample of the first day of eternity in hell.”

“The woman is the subtlest beast in the garden,” said Papa Moose, “now that snakes can’t talk.”

“He’s young,” she said.
“We’ve all been guilty of that sin,” said Alvin. “And some never get over it.”

“I took the leap, yes, but I didn't like the ledge where I landed — I fought the bear, I kissed the princess, but now I don't want to be king. Well, where in the fairy tales did it ever say Cinderella had to like being queen?”

“If something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that made no sense.”

“You are so intent that you believe only what you believe that you believe, that you remain utterly blind to what you really believe without believing that you believe it.”

“Such a darling child, they would say, and pat her head. And Miriam would answer in her heart: you made my father a slave. You want us all dead. You are the river, you and all of Egypt. You are the river and as long as we stay beside you we are in danger of drowning.”

“I don't know why people who got what they need to be happy don’t just go ahead and be happy.”

“You resent death. You regret death. But as for your own life, you know perfectly well that no one can threaten it at all. Death is something that happens to someone else.”

“Doesn't love show its face when it satisfies the need of the loved one, for the loved one's sake alone?”

“Don’t press her,” said Cooper. “If someone decides to leave something unsaid, my experience is that everyone is happier if they don’t insist on his saying it.”

“You know, if you hurt people enough, eventually they’ll all call you whatever you want. Maker. King. Captain. Boss. Master. Holy One. Pick your title, you can beat people into calling you that. But you don’t change yourself a bit. All you do is change the meanings of those words, so they all mean the same thing: Bully.”