Wiggin Quotes & Sayings

Every time, I've won because I could understand the way my enemy though. From what they did. I could tell what they though I was doing, how they wanted the battle to take shape. And I played off of that. I'm very good at that. Understanding how other people think. - Ender Wiggin — Orson Scott Card

We're going to make him the best military commander in history. And then put the fate of the world on his shoulders. — Orson Scott Card

You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Who would expect less?" she said. " You're a Wiggin."
" Whatever that means." He said.
" It means that you are going to make a difference in the world. — Orson Scott Card

You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish, and nothing more. — Orson Scott Card

[Julia Carey] had never, even when very young, experienced a desire to sit at the feet of superior wisdom, always greatly preferring a chair of her own. She seldom did wrong, in her own opinion, because the moment she entertained an idea it at once became right, her vanity serving as a pair of blinders to keep her from seeing the truth. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

I'm not one to despise other people for their sins. I haven't found one yet, that I didn't say to myself, I've done worse than this. — Orson Scott Card

To let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling without names, for months and months, was enough to ruin them for life. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

You get all the pleasures of the puppeteer. — Orson Scott Card

The world is always a new plaything to children, while to the old it seems falling to pieces from sheer dryness. Everything loses its value with time, but it is not the fault of the fruit, but of the mouth and the tongue. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Who else but a pacifist would attack somebody as little as Wiggin? — Orson Scott Card

I thought commanders could order anything."
"They can order the moon to turn blue, too, but it doesn't happen. Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you. — Orson Scott Card

If I haven't anything to write, I am just as anxious to 'take my pen in hand' as though I had a message to deliver, a cause to plead, or a problem to unfold. Nothing but writing rests me; only then do I seem completely myself! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

No touching Baby Jesus."
"But we're his parents!" proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation.
"Mary Beth," Barb Wiggin said, "if you touch the Baby Jesus, I'm putting you in a cow costume. — John Irving

Counting obligations under Medicare and Social Security, the real debt of the United States is more than 10 times the reported national debt. — Addison Wiggin

Compassion is what you're good at. I'm better at complex searches through organized data structures. — Orson Scott Card

But I hope that in the lives of Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Ela, Human, Jane, the hive queen, and so many others in this book, you will find stories worth holding in your memory, perhaps even in your heart. That's the transaction that counts more than bestseller lists, royalty statements, awards, or reviews. Because in the pages of this book, you and I will meet one-on-one, my mind and yours, and you will enter a world of my making and dwell there, not as a character that I control, but as a person with a mind of your own. You will make of my story what you need it to be, if you can. I hope my tale is true enough and flexible enough that you can make it into a world worth living in. — Orson Scott Card

Ender Wiggin must believe that no matter what happens, no adult will ever, ever step in to help him in any way. He must believe, to the core of his soul, that he can only do what he and the other children work out for themselves. If he does not believe that, then he will never reach the peak of his abilities. — Orson Scott Card

To make my diary a little different I am going to call it a Thought Book ... I have thoughts that I never can use unlesss I write them down, for Aunt Miranda always says, Keep your thoughts to yourself. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Yes, Mr. Popham is a Methodist and I'm a Congregationalist, but I say let the children go where they like, so I always take them with me. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

So she retreated into herself, rebuilt the damaged pathways of her mind, explored long-unvisited memories, wandered among the trillions of human lives that were open to her observation, read over the libraries of every book known to exist in every language human beings had ever spoken. She created out of all this a self that was not utterly linked to Ender Wiggin, though she was still devoted to him, still loved him above any other living soul. Jane made herself into someone who could bear to be cut off from her lover, husband, father, child, brother, friend. — Orson Scott Card

I need to find out if I'm as good at peace as I am at war — Orson Scott Card

Don't judge me until you understand me. You can't understand me if you've already judged me. — Orson Scott Card

Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but that he was far better than everyone else. That was the only way he could win respect and friendship. It made him a better soldier then he would ever have been otherwise. It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier. — Orson Scott Card

The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

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. — Orson Scott Card

Wiggin really doesn't care as much about himself as he does about these other kids who aren't worth five minutes of his time.
And yet this may be the very trait that makes everyone focus on him. Maybe this is why all those stories Sister Carlotta told him, Jesus always had a crowd around him.Maybe this is why I'm so afraid of Wiggen. Because he's the alien, not me. He's the unintelligible one, the unpredictable one. He's the one who doesn't do things for sensible, predictable reasons. I'm going to survive, and once you know that, there's nothing more to know about me. Him, though, he could do anything. — Orson Scott Card

He is dangerous, he is beautiful, I could drown in his understanding. — Orson Scott Card

Let me tell you about gods," said Wiggin. "No matter how smart or strong you are, there's always somebody smarter or stronger, and when you run into somebody who's stronger and smarter than anybody, you think, This is a god. This is perfection. But I can promise you that there's somebody else somewhere else who'll make your god look like a maggot by comparison. And somebody smarter or stronger or better in some way. So let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down. For Congress to genetically alter people to make them smarter and more creative, that could have been a godlike, generous gift. But they were scared, so they hobbled the people of Path. They wanted to stay in control. A real god doesn't care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them. — Orson Scott Card

"And all the bars at which we fret, That seem to prison and control, Are but the doors of daring set Ajar before the soul. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

There is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humor as selling tickets behind a grating ... — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Some folks mistakes all they see for all there is. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Mr. Wiggin injected a kind of horror-movie element into the Christmas miracle; to the rector, every Bible story was-if properly understood-threatening. — John Irving

Want my security system now?" Ender got up and walked away from his bed. "Ender," said Alai. Ender turned around. Alai was holding a little piece of paper. "What is it?" Alai looked up at him. "Don't you know? This was on your bed. You must have sat on it." Ender took it from him. ENDER WIGGIN ASSIGNED SALAMANDER ARMY COMMANDER BONZO MADRID EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CODE GREEN GREEN BROWN NO POSSESSIONS TRANSFERRED "You're smart, Ender, but you don't do the — Orson Scott Card

The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he lolled back in his seat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed hat of worn felt was well pulled over his eyes, and revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Maternal love, like an orange tree, buds and blossoms and bears at once. When a woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heartstrings, she is born again with her newborn child. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

When, all at once, you find you have something precious you only dimly suspected was to be yours, you almost wish it hadn't come so soon. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

So it's Mr. Wiggin and Who The Hell Are You.'
'About right,' Bean replied. — Orson Scott Card

They forget that government revenues derive from confiscation, rather than production. — Addison Wiggin

The habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public eye. Nothing, for example can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from his dip in the river, had scrambled up the hillside from the hut in the alder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

What about this? A colony of nothing but Battle School grads. If they bred true, they'd be the smartest military minds in the galaxy.
Then they'd come home and take over Earth.
OK, not that. — Orson Scott Card

Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever-fresh and radiant possibility. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself. — Orson Scott Card

In the end it was only Peter who had something he could say from the heart.
"Am I the only one here who sees something of himself in the man who's lying inside this box?"
No one had an answer for him, either yes or no. — Orson Scott Card

Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins - thoroughly. — Orson Scott Card

You honor our humble abode,' said Bean.
'I do, don't I,' said Peter with a smile. — Orson Scott Card

A real Christmas baby was not to be lightly named. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Peter, why do I get the idea that you are thinking of this as a golden opportunity for Peter Wiggin?" "For both of us, Val." "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." "But we don't think like other children, do we, Val? We don't talk like other children. And above all, we don't write like other children." "For a discussion that began with death threats, Peter, we've strayed from the topic, I think. — Orson Scott Card

He walked down the corridor, lined with his soldiers, who looked at him with love, with awe, with trust. Except Bean, who looked at him with anguish. Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far. — Orson Scott Card

Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk? — Kate Douglas Wiggin

One cannot see callers, answer the telephone, go to luncheons or dinners, visit the dentist or shoemaker, address charitable organizations in or from a bed; therefore a bed, in my experience, is simply bristling with ideas. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

You seem to have an uncommon knowledge of young people. May I ask if you are, or have been, a teacher?" "Oh, no!" Mrs. Carey remarked with a smile, "I am just a mother,
that's all! Good night. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

She was fairly good at any kind of housework not demanding brains. Nobody could say why some of Ossian Popham's gifts of mind and conversation had not descended to his children, but though the son was not really stupid at practical work, Lallie Joy was in a perpetual state of coma. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

An enemy, Ender Wiggin," whispered the old man. "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 shows you where you are weak. 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. — Orson Scott Card

Never believe a rumor of my death,' said Peter. 'I have as many lives as a cat. Also as many teeth, as many claws, and the same cheery, cooperative disposition. — Orson Scott Card

Hugh refused to leave the scene of the action. He seated himself on the top stair in the hall, banged his head against the railing a few times, just by way of uncorking the vials of his wrath, and then subsided into gloomy silence, waiting to declare war if more "first girl babies" were thrust upon a family already surfeited with that unnecessary article. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no on ewould save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you. — Orson Scott Card

The petroDollar system breaking down, where oil is no longer paid for in Dollars internationally, essentially would be the death knell to the US Dollar as the reserve currency. It means the US can't borrow with 'exorbitant privilege' anymore, and it means the US Treasury market is set for an out-of-control interest rate spiral. — Addison Wiggin

I am a disbeliever in the unbelievable. — Orson Scott Card

I am here because I am the one that must love Peter so much that he can feel worthy, worthy enough to bear to let the goodness of Young Valentine flow into him, making him whole, making him Ender. Not Ender the Xenocide and Andrew the Speaker for the Dead, guilt and compassion mingled in one shattered, broken, unmendable heart, but Ender Wiggin the four-year-old boy whose life was twisted and broken when he was too young to defend himself. Wang-mu was the one who could give Peter permission to become the man that child should have grown up to be, if the world had been good. — Orson Scott Card

There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

We'll never speak of 'last times,' Gilly, or where would any of us be? We'll always think of 'next' times. I shall trust Nancy next time, and next time and next time, and keep on trusting till I can trust her forever! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

If only we could have talked to you, the hive-queen said in Ender's words. But since it could not be, we ask only this: that you remember us, not as enemies, but as a tragic sisters, changed into foul shape by fate or God or evolution. If we had kissed, it would have been the miracle to make us human in each other's eyes. Instead we killed each other. But still we welcome you now as guestfriends. Come into our home, daughters of Earth; dwell in our tunnels, harvest our fields; what we cannot do, you are now our hands to do for us. Blossom, trees; ripen, fields; be warm for them, suns; be fertile for them, planets: they are our adopted daughters, and they have come home. — Orson Scott Card

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid. — Orson Scott Card

Never miss a joy in this world of trouble-that's my theory! ...
Happiness, like mercy,is twice blest: it blesses those most
intimately associated with it and it blesses all those who see
it, hear it, touch it or breathe the same atmosphere. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

There are certain narrow, umimaginative, and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

The highest beings of all are the ones who are willing to pay any personal cost for the good of those who need them. — Orson Scott Card

No whimpering, madam! You can't have the joys of motherhood without some of its pangs! Think of your blessings, and don't be a coward! - — Kate Douglas Wiggin

The computer is also not famous for having mercy. — Orson Scott Card

Cover your butt. Bernard is watching. — Orson Scott Card

If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

It is very funny, but you do not always have to see people to love them. Just think about it, and see if it isn't so. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

When a brother is given the right to pass into the third life as a father, then he chooses his greatest rival or his truest friend to give him passage. You. Speaker - ever since I first learned Stark and read The Hive Queen and the Hegemon, I waited for you. I said many times to my father, Rooter, of all humans he is the one who will understand us. Then Rooter told me when your starship came, that it was you and the hive queen aboard that ship, and I knew then that you had come to give me passage, if only I did well."
"You did well, Human. — Orson Scott Card

What else should you be? 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. — Orson Scott Card

Wang-mu fell silent, but not because she was embarrassed. She simply had nothing to say, and therefore said nothing. — Orson Scott Card

It isn't what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It's why. — Orson Scott Card

No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins. — Orson Scott Card

You can never prove God; you can only find Him! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

I think Bonzo died. I dreamed about it last night. I remembered the way he looked after I jammed his face with my head. I think I must have pushed his nose back into his brain. The blood was coming out of his eyes. I think he was dead right then. — Orson Scott Card

Since I don't have actual authority over anybody, Petra, how can it possibly matter if I'm not legitimately authorized? — Orson Scott Card

Come on," he said to Valentine one day. "Let's fly away and live forever."
"We can't," she said. "There are miracles even relativity can't pull off, Ender."
"We have to go. I'm almost happy here."
"So, stay."
"I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it."
So they boarded a starship and went from world to world. Wherever they stopped, he was always Andrew Wiggin, itinerant speaker for the dead, and she was always Valentine, historian errant, writing down the stories of the living while Ender spoke the stories of the dead. And always Ender carried with him a dry white cocoon, looking for the world where the hive-queen could awaken and thrive in peace. He looked a long time. — Orson Scott Card

For those who unfairly lump Social Security in with Bernie Madoff, in all fairness, you should point out the difference. No one was ever legally required to pay money to Madoff. — Addison Wiggin

Oh, Kathleen!" sighed Nancy as the two went into the kitchen together. "Isn't mother the most interesting 'scolder' you ever listened to? I love to hear her do it, especially when somebody else is getting it. When it's I, I grow smaller and smaller, curling myself up like a little worm. Then when she has finished I squirm to the door and wriggle out. Other mothers say: 'If you don't, I shall tell your father!' 'Do as I tell you, and ask no questions.' 'I never heard of such behavior in my life!' 'Haven't you any sense of propriety?' 'If this happens again I shall have to do something desperate.' 'Leave the room at once,' and so on; but mother sets you to thinking."
"Mother doesn't really scold," Kathleen objected.
"No, but she shows you how wrong you are, just the same ... — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Nancy was more impulsive than industrious, more generous than wise, more plucky than prudent; she had none too much perseverance and no patience at all. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

The girl's eyes were soft and tender, and the heart within her stretched a little and grew - grew in sweetness and intuition and depth of feeling. It had looked into another heart, felt it beat, and heard it sigh; and that is how all hearts grow. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

There are some who possess the magic touch, the infectious spirit of enthusiasm; who have the same effect as a beautiful morning that never reaches noon. Under this spell one's mind is braced, one's spirit recreated; one is ready for any adventure, even if it only be the doing of the next distasteful task light-heartedly. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast,
World, you are beautifully drest! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

As a matter of fact it required only a tolerable show of virtue for Peter to win encomiums at any time. He would brush his curly mop of hair away from his forehead, lift his eyes, part his lips, showing a row of tiny white teeth; then a dimple would appear in each cheek and a seraphic expression (wholly at variance with the facts) would overspread the baby face, whereupon the beholder ... would cry "Angel boy!" and kiss him. He was even kissed now, though he had done nothing at all but exist and be an enchanting personage, which is one of the injustices of a world where a large number of virtuous and well-behaved people go unkissed to their graves! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Colonel Graff: We won! That's all that matters.
Ender Wiggin: No. The way we win matters. — Orson Scott Card

Pictures made in childhood are painted in bright hues ... — Kate Douglas Wiggin

I am not wise enough to say how much of all this squalor and wretchedness and hunger is the fault of the people themselves, how much of it belongs to circumstances and environment, how much is the result of past errors of government, how much is race, how much is religion. I only know that children should never be hungry, that there are ignorant human creatures to be taught how to live; and if it is a hard task, the sooner it is begun the better, both for teachers and pupils. It is comparatively easy to form opinions and devise remedies, when one knows the absolute truth of things; but it is so difficult to find the truth here, or at least there are so many and such different truths to weigh in the balance ... — Kate Douglas Wiggin

On the contrary, Mr. Wiggin. The tax laws are designed to trick people into paying more than they have to. That way the rich who are in the know get to take advantage of drastic tax breaks, while those who don't have such good connections and haven't yet found an accountant who does are tricked into paying ludicrously higher amounts. I, however, know all the tricks. — Robert Silverberg

Be proud, Bonito, pretty boy. You can go home and tell your father, Yes, I beat up Ender Wiggin, who was barely ten years old, and I was thirteen. And I had only six of my friends to help me, and somehow we managed to defeat him, even though he was naked and wet and alone
Ender Wiggin is so dangerous and terrifying it was all we could do not to bring two hundred. — Orson Scott Card

So this kid is what? A predestined Alexander? A Caesar? A Genghis? A Wiggin?" I ask. "This is slagging nonsense. — Pierce Brown

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Please drop a note to the clerk of the weather, and have a good, rousing snow-storm
say on the twenty-second. None of your meek, gentle, nonsensical, shilly-shallying snow-storms; not the sort where the flakes float lazily down from the sky as if they didn't care whether they ever got here or not, and then melt away as soon as they touch the earth, but a regular business-like whizzing, whirring, blurring, cutting snow-storm, warranted to freeze and stay on! — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Lord, I do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it. — Orson Scott Card