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Home
Authors
Orson Scott Card
American
Writer
About the author
Ulysses, obviously. It was an elaborate prank, and our supposed intellectual elite continue to fall for it.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Truth
#Metaphors
#Space
My college training was primarily in theatre, with an eye to becoming a director, actor, or producer.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Eye
#Training
#College
#Actor
#Theatre
My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Work
Of course, I also hear from critics who detest what I do, and while sometimes I feel rather proud of having made various the loathsome people or groups angry, at other times I wonder why I put up with such grief.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#People
#Wonder
#Grief
One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Surprises
#Questions
#Mind
The best thing about my job, though, is stopping at the end of the day and rejoining the human universe.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Day
#End
#Universe
#Job
The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Career
#Writer
#Education
#Knowledge
The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Life
#Hope
#Will
#Experience
#Writer
#Training
#Questioning
#Explanations
There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good,' to behave in a way that is for the benefit of the whole community.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Reason
#Society
#Community
#Fiction
Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Garden
#Unemployment
#Capitalism
Working is hard and distracts from having fun.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Fun
Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Writing
You who speak languages, you are such liars.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
Your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Work
#Nothing
#First
#Winning
#Learning
Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Books
#Laws
#Behavior
The lies we live will always be confessed in the stories that we tell.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Will
#Lies
There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Acting
#Writing
I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn't expect it to be a career because I didn't believe there was a way to make money as a playwright without being lucky and I didn't feel particularly lucky.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Career
#Being
#Writing
#Money
Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Words
#Possessions
As long as you keep getting born, it's alright to die some times.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
But in the meantime I became accustomed to the writing life and it would be hard to change now - partly because of the salary cut if I went to my other love, teaching; and partly because I still have stories to tell, even though it isn't all that fun doing the work anymore.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Now
#Life
#Love
#Work
#Fun
#Teaching
#Writing
#Change
Everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new ideas.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#First
#Ideas
#Writers
God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal - there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#God
#Result
#Free will
#Cause
#Environment
I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Civilization
#Poison
I buy way too many books.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Books
The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#God
#Will
#Control
#Choice
It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Being
#Luxury
#Class
#Causes
#Middle class
I have lived in the only decades I could have lived in, and hope to live through at least a few more.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Hope
I hope I am remembered by my children as a good father.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Hope
#Children
#Father
I listen to music constantly while writing.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Writing
#Music
I realized that everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new ideas.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#First
#Ideas
#Writers
I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Will
#War
#Government
#Light
#Nations
#America
#Republican
#Values
I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Wonder
#Writers
#Admiration
#Contempt
#Motivation
In all my study of history, I have never found a time or place I would rather have lived than now.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Time
#Now
#Study
#History
In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#Love
#Enemy
#Defeat
I don't believe that there are aliens. I believe there are really different people.
Orson Scott Card,
American
Writer
#People