Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth.

Page 2

This would not have a happy ending. So Ender decided he'd rather not be the unhappiest at the end.

Page 6

Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like Peter. Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter.

Page 8

But this isn't how it feels to be a bugger, thought Ender. They don't ware this face like a mask, it is their face. On their home worlds, do the buggers put on human masks, and play?

Page 11

"Then you're dead, too, sweet little sister."

"Oh, yes," said Valentine. "They'll believe that. 'I didn't know it would kill Andrew. And when he was dead, I didn't know it will kill Valentine too.' "

Page 13

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Persuade him that he wants to come with us more than he wants to stay with her."

"How will you do that?"

"I'll lie to him."

Page 16

"Another oral exam, huh?", Peter said.

"Shut up, Peter," said Valentine.

"You should relax and enjoy it," said Peter. "It could be worse."

"I don't know how."

"It could be an anal exam."

Page 18

"Valentine loves me."

"With all her heart. Completely, unstintingly, she's devoted to you, and you adore her. I told you it wouldn't be easy."

Page 23

"It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?"

Page 26

"Just one more example of the stupidity of the military. If you had any brains, you'd be in a real career, like selling life insurance."

Page 37

At last he came to a door, with these words in glowing emeralds: THE END OF THE WORLD. He did not hesitate. He opened the door and stepped through.

Page 73

Perhaps it's called the end of the world because it's the end of the games, because I can go to one of the villages and become one of the little boys working and playing there, with nothing to kill and nothing to kill me, just living there. As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what "just living" might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.

Page 74

He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him.

Page 87

"Fairness is a wonderful attribute, Major Anderson. It has nothing to do with war."

Page 97

"I'm putting you in Dink Meeker's toon. From now on, as far as you're concerned, Dink Meeker is God."

"Then who are you?"
"The personal officer who hired God."

Page 100

I'm doing it again, thought Ender. I'm hurting people again, just to save myself. Why don't they leave me alone, so I don't have to hurt them?

Page 115

"Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice."

Page 127

"I can't do a weekly column," Valentine said. "I don't even have a monthly period yet."

Page 135

"No. I want you to write a letter."

"What good does that do? Ender never answered a single letter I sent."

Graff sighed. "He answered every letter he got."

It took only a second for her to understand. "You really stink."

Page 148

That's the problem with winning right from the start, thought Ender. You lose friends.

Page 184

Carn Carby left, and Ender mentally added him to his private list of people who also qualified as human beings.

Page 184

He thought of a half dozen ideas before he went to sleep. Ender would be pleased--every one of them was stupid.

Page 199

"Real respect takes longer than official respect."

Page 230

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

Page 231

"As for Peter--we didn't even suggest a meeting, and so he didn't have a chance to tell us to go to hell."

Page 232

"Two faces of the same coin. And I am the metal in between."

Page 236

"The trouble with coins is, when one face is up, the other face is down."

Page 236

"I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them they way they love themselves."

Page 238

Two sides of the same coin, but which side is which?

Page 238

"We aren't just ordinary children, are we. None of us."

"Don't you sometimes wish we were?"

Page 240

"Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned.  And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth."

Page 241

"It's just as meaningful to say that our ancestors could easily have been very much like squirrels."

"If that's all we have to go on, that's something, " said Ender.

"Squirrels never built starships, " said Graff. "There are usually a few changes on the way from gathering nuts and seeds to harvesting asteroids and putting permanent research stations on the moons of Saturn."

Page 248

"I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher."

Page 262

I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly-I'll beat you unfairly first.

Page 293

"I don't have to be your commander anymore, do I?" asked Ender. "I don't want to command anybody again."

"You don't have to command anybody," said Dink, "but you're always our commander."

Page 303

They would help the newcomers when they came, teach them what they had learned, but what mattered in life now was who would marry whom, and who was sick, and when was planting time, and why should I pay him when the calf died three weeks after I got it.

Page 316

"What was in there?", asked Abra.

"The answer," said Ender.

"To what?"

"My question." And that was all he said of the matter;

Page 321

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

Page 323