Ender's Game (1-324)

Ender's Game is a story about a futuristic military school, where the teachers attempt to create the next leader for humanity's forces from a bunch of school-age children. One such child is Ender Wiggin, Ender has shown exceptional skill and has the potential to be that leader. However his superiors, including Colonel Graff, struggle with the morality of destroying a boy's childhood to make their soldier. In this excerpt, Graff attempts to convince Ender, and possibly himself, the justice behind his actions.

'Then too bad. Look, Ender, I'm sorry if you're lonely and afraid. But the buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know. With as many ships, for all we know. With weapons we can't understand And a willingness to use those weapons to wipe us out. It isn't the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution, But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to a genious. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire. Do you understand any of this?

I knew when I first read this passage, that it would be the quote I used for many reasons. Firstly, this excerpt, an entire paragraph in the book, is the closest thing to a monologue Graff, or anyone has. As such, the sentence structure reflects the fact that it is spoken. The author will write one profound, full-length sentence, followed by two, short sentences to increase the effect. It gives the paragraph, especially when spoken aloud, a sort of swelling feel, as though the text is slowly gathering steam, increasing in power as it goes.

Card, Orson. Ender's Game. New York, NY: Tom Doherty Associates LLC, 1991.