And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
Orson Scott CardRead
I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. WE'RE not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't COMMANDERS, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get crazy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the complexity of human behavior and the burdens of leadership, suggesting that those in power are often burdened with understanding the weight of their responsibilities.
In this quote, Orson Scott Card emphasizes the difference between children who are seen as innocent and carefree, and those who are thrust into positions of authority, where they must deal with the harsh realities of leadership and its associated responsibilities. The speaker expresses a sense of disillusionment with the idea that the people around him are normal, highlighting the pressures and potential madness that come with leadership, especially when one feels burdened by the expectations placed upon them.
Themes
LeadershipResponsibilityStressInsightDisillusionment
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting, to discuss the challenges faced in leadership roles.
More from Orson Scott Card
All quotes →The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.
Orson Scott CardRead
Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
Orson Scott CardRead
The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.
Orson Scott CardRead
You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.
Orson Scott CardRead
I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.
Orson Scott CardRead
Similar quotes
Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting... By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.
George CarlinRead
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
Audre LordeRead
So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.
Sidney PoitierRead
The working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are responsible for everything that takes place, the good things and the bad things. True enough, they suffer most from a war, but it is their apathy, craving for authority, etc., that is most responsible for making wars possible. It follows of necessity from this responsibility that the working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are capable of establishing lasting peace.
Wilhelm ReichRead