Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives. Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did. The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God. I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own.

— Orson Scott Card

A good commander, thought Under, doesn't have to make stupid threats.

— Orson Scott Card

A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you. The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?' They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.' The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.' So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.' The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’ As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’ So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him.-San Angelo Letters to an Incipient Heretic

— Orson Scott Card

Alien saw the tears but had the grace not to say so. "They're fatheads, Under, they won't even let you take anything you own." Under grinned and didn't cry after all. "Think I should strip and go naked?" Alai laughed, too. On impulse Under hugged him, tight, almost as if he were Valentine. He even thought of Valentine then and wanted to go home. "I don't want to go," he said. Alai hugged him back. "I understand them, Under. You are the best of us. Maybe they in a hurry to teach you everything."" They don't want to teach me everything," Under said. "I wanted to learn what it was like to have a friend." Alai nodded soberly. "Always my friend, always the best of my friends," he said. Then he grinned. "Go slice up the buggers."" Yeah," Under smiled back. Alai suddenly kissed Under on the cheek and whispered in his ear, "Salaam.

— Orson Scott Card

All dreams. If there was love or pity for him, it was only in his dreams.

— Orson Scott Card

All these uses a valid; all these reading of the book are "correct". For all these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators, but as participants, and so have looked at the world of Under's Game, not with my eyes only, but also with their own.

— Orson Scott Card

A lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past.

— Orson Scott Card

Alvin smiled back, and kissed her. "People talk about fools counting chickens before they hatch. That's nothing. We name them.

— Orson Scott Card

A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.

— Orson Scott Card

America's intellectual community has never been very bright. Or honest. They're all sheep, following whatever the intellectual fashion of the decade happens to be. Demanding that everyone follow their dicta in lockstep. Everyone has to be open-minded and tolerant of the things they believe, but God forbid they should ever concede, even for a moment, that someone who disagrees with them might have some finger hold of truth.

— Orson Scott Card