Orson Bean Quotes

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.

And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.

I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

Poke gave him life. Ender gave it meaning.

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

He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.

Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for belonging.

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm watching. But I'm free. Because it's Ender's game.

O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. 'my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!

...the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns being the keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept.

So you love me," said Petra softly when the kiss ended. I'm a raging mass of hormones thet I'm too young to understand," said Bean. "You're a female of a closely related species. According to all the best primatologists, I really have no choice." That's nice," she said...

Thanks from keeping me from being a liar," said Nikolai. "What?" "About your having diarrhea." "For you I'd get dysentery." "Now that's friendship.

Once you get a brother, you don’t give him up easy.

The criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them―noticing them―that was essential. If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement. The part of the man's statement that was true, however, was about the uselessness of speaking up. If I know that the teacher is wrong, and say nothing, then I remain the only one who knows, and that gives me an advantage over those who believe the teacher.

Mom," said Peter, "nobody thinks you're a lackwit, if that's what you're worried about." Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word? I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I ever suppose that I was a lackwit.

The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life... But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong—for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.

Aw, Poke, you poor, kind, decent, stupid girl. You saved me and I let you down.

What I want," he said softly, "is to stand in this meadow and walk in the light of the sun.

You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.

He didn't feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you're in, you don't worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here's where you've got to find a way to survive and lying in bed boo-hooing doesn't help much with that.

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.

No point in getting emotional about anything. Being emotional didn't help with survival. What mattered was to learn everything, analyze the situation, choose a course of action, and then move boldly. Know, think, choose, do. There was no place in that list for "feel." Not that Bean didn't have feelings. He simply refused to think about them or dwell on them or let them influence his decisions, when anything important was at stake.

It didn't matter he was brilliant and dedicated and good. He was a child. He was young. No he isn't, thought Ender. Small, yes. Bur Bean has been through a battle with a whole army depending on him and on the soldiers that he led. and he performed splendidly, and the won. There's no youth in that. No childhood.

I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do this alone. Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn’t true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was because he couldn’t bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you. I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

Come in, Bean." Come in Julian Delphiki, longed-for child of good and loving parents. Come in, kidnapped child, hostage of fate. Come and talk to the Fates, who are playing such clever little games with your life.

Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Ender, it turned into an argument.

What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody. And yet somehow we live together, mostly in peace, and get things done with a high enough success rate that people keep trying. Human beings get married and a lot of marriages work, and they have children and most of them grow up to be decent people, and they have schools and businesses and factories and farms that have results at some level of acceptability—all without having a clue what’s going on inside anybody’s head. Muddling through, that’s what human beings do. that was the part of being human that Bean hated the most.

Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up.

Because here's the thing―we don't give a shit about fairness here. We're soldiers. Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only works among civilians. And you were too cocky, too stupid, too insane to realize it.

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.

Don't launch it," said Bean into his microphone, head down. "Set it off inside your ship. God be with you.

What kind of rescue is this, where you toss the prisoner a knife and stand and wait to see what happens?

Besides," said Suriyawong. "This was not a rescue operation." "What was it, target practice? Chinese skeet?" "An offer of transportation to an invited guest of the Hegemon," said Suriyawong. "And the loan of a knife." Achilles held up the bloody thing, dangling it from the point. "Yours?" he asked. "Unless you want to clean it," said Suriyawong. Achillese handed it to him. Suriyawong took out his cleaning kit and wiped down the blade, then began to polish it. "You wanted me to die," said Achilles quietly. "I expected you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong.

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

But what kind of race is it, when the racers never let go of each other's hands, and the winner pulls the loser laughing over the finish line?

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.

Bean was tired of talking about this. She looked so happy when she talked about God, but he hadn't figured it out yet, what God even was. It was like, she wanted to give God credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she either didn't mention God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all. As far as bean could see, though, the dead kids would rather have been alive, just with more food. If God loved them so much and he could do whatever he wanted, then why wasn't there more food for these kids? And if God just wanted them dead, why didn't he let them die sooner or not even be born at all, so they didn't have to go to so much trouble and get all excited about trying to be alive when he was just going to take them to his heart. None of it made any sense to Bean, and the more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn't fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?

How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.

If you think that,” said Bean, “you’re an idiot.” “Actually, I do think that, and I’m not an idiot.

Time to repay old humiliations, is that it, Bean? 'Of course,' Ender said contemptuously. 'I'm not as close to the floor as you are.

Why do I feel a song coming on?" said Bean. The sarcastic words slipped out of him unbidden.

Maybe we’re assigning Achilles supernatural powers,” said Petra. “He isn’t a god. Not even a hero. Just a sick kid.” “No,” said Bean. “I’m a sick kid. He’s the devil.” “Well, so,” said Petra, “maybe the devil’s a sick kid.

Bean just didn’t get it. He didn’t feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you’re in, you don’t worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here’s where you’ve got to find a way to survive and lying in bed boo-hooing doesn’t help much with that.

Poor kid. Nobody’s treatin’ him fair.” Ender gently pushed Bean back against the wall. “I’ll tell you how to get a toon. Prove to me you know what you’re doing as a soldier. Prove to me you know how to use other soldiers. And then prove to me that somebody’s willing to follow you into battle. Then you’ll get your toon. But not bloody well until.

Petra looked at him as if he were an annoying child. “You really are dim,” she said. “I know he’s dangerous,” said Peter. “That’s why we have to be very careful how we handle this.” “Listen to him,” said Petra. “Saying ‘we.’” “There’s no ‘we,’” said Bean. “Good luck.” Still holding Petra’s hand, Bean started for the forest. Petra had only a moment to wave cheerily at Peter and then she was beside Bean, jogging toward the trees.

If you try to look up my skirt, I'll poke needles in your eyes right through your eyelids while you're asleep.' 'I'm looking for help, you give me nightmares, thank you so much.' She was on the top step now, reaching up for a bin marked DRY BEANS. Rigg looked up her skirt, mostly because she told him not to, and saw nothing at all of interest. He could never understand why Nox and other women, too, were always so sure men wanted to see whatever it is they concealed under their clothes.

He felt terrible. At first he thought he felt bad because he was afraid of leading an army, but it wasn’t true. He knew he’d make a good commander. He felt himself wanting to cry. He hadn’t cried since the first few days of homesickness after he got here. He tried to put a name on the feeling that put a lump in his throat and made him sob silently, however much he tried to hold it down. He bit down on his hand to stop the feeling, to replace it with pain. It didn’t help. He would never see Ender again. Once he named the feeling, he could control it. He lay back and forced himself to go through the relaxing routine until he didn’t feel like crying anymore. Then he drifted off to sleep. His hand was near his mouth. It lay on his pillow hesitantly, as if Bean couldn’t decide whether to bite his nails or suck on his fingertips. His forehead was creased and furrowed. His breathing was quick and light. He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn’t have known what they meant.

Don't be one of the scurrying, struggling ants. Be the shoe.

Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Ender, it turned into an argument. Bean hated it.

This wasn’t about killing Bean—that was just a bonus. It was about getting Bean’s babies.

She looked so happy when she talked about God, but he hadn’t figured it out yet, what God even was. It was like, she wanted to give God credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she either didn’t mention God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all. As far as Bean could see, though, the dead kids would rather have been alive, just with more food. If God loved them so much, and he could do whatever he wanted, then why wasn’t there more food for these kids? And if God just wanted them dead, why didn’t he let them die sooner or not even be born at all, so they didn’t have to go to so much trouble and get all excited about trying to be alive when he was just going to take them to his heart. None of it made any sense to Bean, and the more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn’t fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?

No point in getting emotional about anything. Being emotional didn’t help with survival. What mattered was to learn everything, analyze the situation, choose a course of action, and then move boldly. Know, think, choose, do. There was no place in that list for “feel.” Not that Bean didn’t have feelings. He simply refused to think about them or dwell on them or let them influence his decisions, when anything important was at stake.

But he also earned that devotion by noticing, not just what was going on in the battle, but what was going on in his commanders’ minds. He was stern, sometimes even snappish, making it clear that he expected better than their best. And yet he had a way of giving an intonation to innocuous words, showing appreciation, admiration, closeness. They felt known by the one whose honor they needed. Bean simply did not know how to do that. His encouragement was always more obvious, a bit heavy-handed. It meant less to them because it felt more calculated. It was more calculated.

Bean also saw how the man’s body moved inside his clothes, with a kind of contained strength that made his clothes seem like Kleenex, he could rip through the fabric just by tugging at it a little, because nothing could hold him in except his own self-control.

And that," said Bean, "is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning.

Truth did not care much about such credentials. It refused to give up and reveal itself just because it realized you were bound to find it eventually. Bean

They offered something that was genuinely good, and people’s lives were better because they offered it. It was not a noble cause that would get written up in the histories. But it was not nothing, either. A person could do worse than spend some large percentage of his life in a cause like that. Bean

And were you punished? No. Why? Because you were rich." "Money and talent aren't the same thing." "That’s because you can inherit money that was earned by your ancestors," said Sister Carlotta. "And everybody recognizes the value of money, while only select groups recognize the value of talent.

Here it is, Bean: Those stones in India? Virlomi started it, of course. Got a message from her: >Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no email here. Stones are >mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name >BridgeGirl password not stepstool. At least I think that’s what “stones are mine” means. And what does “password not stepstool” mean? That the password is “not stepstool”? Or that the password is not “stepstool,” in which case it’s probably not “aardvark,” either, but how does that help?

What if the first homo sapiens had felt that way? We’d all still be neanderthals, and when the Buggers came they would have blasted us all to bits and that would be that.” “We didn’t evolve from neanderthals,” said Bean. “Well, it’s a good thing we have that little fact squared away,” said Petra.

Come with us!” shouted one of the Indonesians. Bean thought this was probably a good idea. Since the assassination attempt had included one backup, it might include more, and the sooner he got out of there the better. Of course, he didn’t know anything about these Indonesians, or why they would have been there at this moment to save his life, but the fact that they had guns and weren’t firing them at him implied that for the moment, at least, they were his dearest friends.

First thing we need to do,” said Bean, “is split up.” “No,” said Petra. “I’ve done this before, Petra. Going into hiding. Keeping from getting caught.” “And if we’re together we’re too identifiable, la la la,” she said. “Saying ‘la la la’ doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

He dreamed, as human beings always dream—random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious mind tries to put together into coherent stories. Bean rarely paid attention to his own dreams, rarely even remembered that he dreamed at all. But

She belonged with Bean, not the way a wife belonged with a husband or, God forbid, a girlfriend with a boyfriend, but rather the way a left hand belonged with the right. They simply fit. Nothing exciting about it, nothing to write home about. But it could be counted on.

The dregs? What are you doing to this kid?” “If we choose them, by our ordinary standards, then yes, the dregs. But we aren’t going to choose Ender’s army.” “Bean?” “Our tests are worthless on this, right? Some of those dregs are the very best students, according to Bean, right? And he’s been studying the launchies. So give him an assignment. Tell him to solve a hypothetical problem. Construct an army only out of launchies. Maybe the soldiers on the transfer lists, too.

You wrote this, Bean, but you never submitted it to anybody.” “There was never an assignment that it fit.” “You don’t seem surprised that we found it.” “I assume that you routinely scan our desks.” “Just as you routinely scan ours?

Truth was, Bean felt like an idiot. Of course Wiggin would head for practice immediately. He shouldn’t have needed a warning not to take the suit off. He should have known.

To Bean, that meant that the I.F. had a device that would either block gravitation or, more likely, produce false gravity that was perfectly balanced to counter Coriolis and centrifugal forces in the battleroom, starting exactly at the door. It was a stunning technology—and it was never discussed inside the I.F., at least not in the literature available to students in Battle School, and completely unknown outside.

It was a long and grueling practice, drilling over and over again on new skills. Bean saw that Wiggin wasn’t willing to let them learn each technique separately. They had to do them all at once, integrating them into smooth, continuous movements. Like dancing, Bean thought. You don’t learn to shoot and then learn to launch and then learn to do a controlled spin—you learn to launch-shoot-spin.

Remember,” Bean said ironically, “the enemy’s gate is down.

But what you said—’the enemy’s gate is down.’ That’s the plan Ender used.” “It wasn’t a plan,” said Bean. “Maybe it made him think of a plan. But it was him. It was Ender. You put your money on the right kid.” Graff looked at Bean in silence, then reached out and put a hand on Bean’s head, tousled his hair a little. “I think perhaps you pulled each other across the finish line.

matter. In some form the men of that distant fleet would hear his voice, transmitted faster than light, God knows how. “O my son Absalom,” Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. “My son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!

No matter. In some form the men of that distant fleet would hear his voice, transmitted faster than light, God knows how. “O my son Absalom,” Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. “My son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!

It’s the aborted missions,” said Bean, “that earn you their trust. When you see that it’s more dangerous than we anticipated, that it requires attrition to get the objective, then show the men you value their lives more than the objective of the moment. Later, when you have no choice but to commit them to grave risk, they’ll know it’s because this time it’s worth dying. They know you won’t spend them like a child, on candy and trash.

Nothing made him that way,” said Bean. “No matter what terrible things happened in his life, no matter what dreadful hungers rose up from his soul, he chose to act on those desires, he chose to do the things he did. He’s responsible for his own actions, and no one else. Not even those who saved his life.

They all knew Bean was talking about the conquest of Taiwan. All government officials and their families, all professors, all journalists, all writers, all politicians and their families were taken from Taiwan to reeducation camps in the western desert, where they were set to work performing manual labor, they and their children, for the rest of their lives. None of them ever returned to Taiwan. None of their children ever received approval for education beyond the age of fourteen. The method had been so effective in pacifying Taiwan that there was no chance they would not use the same method in their conquests now.

Lying awake in the darkness, Bean finally made the connection. It was so obvious, once he thought of it. It wasn’t just gravity control they got from the Buggers. It was faster-than-light communication. It’s a big secret from people on Earth, but our ships can talk to each other instantaneously.

At the crest of one of Araraquara’s many hills there was a sorvete shop run by a Japanese-Brazilian family. The family had been in business there for centuries, as their sign proclaimed, and Bean was both amused and moved by this, in light of what Carlotta had said. For this family, making flavored frozen desserts to eat from a cone or cup was the great cause that gave them continuity through the ages. What could be more trivial than that? And yet Bean came here, again and again, because their recipes were, in fact, delicious, and when he thought about how many other people for these past two or three hundred years must have paused and taken a moment’s pleasure in the sweet and delicate flavors, in the feel of the smooth sorvete in their mouths, he could not disdain that cause. They offered something that was genuinely good, and people’s lives were better because they offered it. It was not a noble cause that would get written up in the histories. But it was not nothing, either. A person could do worse than spend some large percentage of his life in a cause like that.

I’m a mammal,” said Bean. “I try to live forever whether I actually want to or not.

Bean had become a friend, finally, to take the place of the lost Alai, who in turn took the place of Valentine. Valentine, who was helping Peter in his plotting. Valentine, who still loved Ender no matter what happened. … Earth was the constant noise of crickets and winds and birds. And the voice of one girl, who spoke to him out of his far-off childhood. The same voice that had once protected him from terror. The same voice that he would do anything to keep alive, even return to school, even leave Earth behind again for another four, or forty or four thousand years. Even if she loved Peter more.

Wow" said Abra. "But if they could read your mind , why couldn't they beat you? "Because my victories weren't in my mind" said Ender. "That's the weird thing. I thought through the battles, yes, but I didn't see them like Bean did. Instead, I saw the people. The soldiers under me. I knew what these kids were capable of. So I put them in a situation where their decisions would be crucial, told them what I wanted them to do, and then I trusted them to make the decisions that would achieve my objective. I didn't actually know what they'd do. So being inside my head would never show the hive queen what I was planning, because I had no plan, not of a kind they could use against me.