bean

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

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.

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

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

And were you punished? No. Why? Because you were rich.""Money and talent aren't the same thing.""That__ 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.

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__l do it, if I can. You don__ have to do this alone.Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn__ 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__ 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__ want to go through what you__e been through to get there.

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

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?

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

I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don__ want to go through what you__e been through to get there.

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

It is my trade," he said. "I work for the bean family, and every day there are deaths among the beans, mostly from thirst. They shrivel and die, they go blind in their one black eye, and I put them in one of these tiny coffins. Beans, you know, are beautifully shaped, like a new church, like modern architecture, like a planned city

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.

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.

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__or 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.

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.