Orson Scott Card Trying Quotations

A duel is just two murders who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.

Nobodys life ever goes according to plan. So why do we keep on planning? Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become. And fail. I don't say 'fail'. I saw we aim and miss. But we still hit something.

If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.

To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you.

We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake." "A habit.

Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.

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?

Isn't it possible, he wondered, for one person to love another without trying to own each other? Or is that buried so deep in our genes that we can never get it out? Territoriality.

If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you.