How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"She told the Bishop that if the Pope declared her parents to be venerable, it would be the same as the Church saying that her parents hated her. The petition for canonization of her parents was proof that Lusitania despised her." (1.47)
Novinha is defined throughout the novel by her opposition to the community of Lusitania. Here, she argues that if her parents are saints, they would answer her prayers and come back to her. If they choose not to, they must not care for her, or in other words, they care more for the community than they do for her. She loves her parents, and the community cares for her parents, but she sees these loves as mutually exclusive. The success of the community is at her expense.
Quote #2
"Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to and the ones she doesn't belong to…a person who really believes she doesn't belong to any community at all invariably kills herself, either by killing her body or by giving up her identity and going mad." (1.137)
Many stories, and many science-fiction stories, define self against community; heroes are often cowboys, lone rebels defying the rules (think Han Solo.) In Speaker for the Dead though, self is defined by community. Novinha's refusal of community messes everybody up (and think what happens to Miro when he climbs the fence to escape his community.)
Quote #3
I'm not the same person, really, from book to book, because each world changes who I am, even as I write down the story of the world. And this world most of all.
This is Valentine thinking about how community changes her. You'd think that since she's a rambling traveler who belongs to nowhere, she'd be outside community, but instead she's saying different communities make her different people. And of course she's actually settling on Trondheim and having kids and a family. Happy endings in Speaker for the Dead aren't so much romantic love or victory as they are getting a home and a community and a mortgage and a faster than light ship in the garage.
Quote #4
Large and stable communities could absorb a reasonable amount of unsanctioned coupling; Milagre was far too small. What Ouanda did from faith, Miro did from rational thought—despite a thousand opportunities, they were as celibate as monks. (9.136)
Speaker for the Dead is in many ways a conservative book; it is worried about, or concerned about, transgression, and the effect transgression will have on communities. If Miro and Ouanda had slept together, they would have violated the incest taboo, since they're actually brother and sister. So effectively, pre-marital sex in this instance leads to incest; smaller infractions reveal themselves as really big infractions. Speaker or the Dead says be good, kids.
Quote #5
"It's the thing our dear San Angelo did not understand because there was never a true monastery of the order during his life," said the Aradora. "The monastery becomes our family, and to leave it would be as painful as divorce. Once the roots go down, the plant can't come up again without great pain and tearing. So we sleep in separate beds, and we have just enough strength to remain in our beloved order." (10.89)
Community is here figured as roots or trees, and the piggies of course actually become trees. For Speaker, the piggies are maybe a utopia—after death they are even more rooted, even more part of the community than ever. Speaker takes the whole putting down roots thing very seriously.
Quote #6
She felt it as her dearest and only friend, her lover, her husband, her brother, her father, her child—all telling her abruptly, inexplicably, that she should cease to exist. (11.28)
Jane's community is one person—Ender, so when he momentarily doesn't want to talk to her, she feels like her life is ending. No matter how perfect your love affair, you need to have other interests. Jane needs to get out more, take up a hobby or two, meet new data terminals.
Quote #7
Bosquinha smiled. "My chauvinism meant that as soon as Lusitania Colony was mine, I became more loyal to the interests of Lusitania than to the interests of the Hundred Worlds or Starways Congress." (15.16)
Chauvinism here is not exactly a bad thing. It means loyalty to those near you; choosing a community of those who you are responsible for, and who are responisbe to you.
Quote #8
Dom Cristao murmured to his wife, "They came for gossip and he gives them responsibility." (15.116)
This is a quick synopsis of the good and bad of communities. On the one hand, community means being constantly judged and picked at by your neighbors if you don't mow the lawn. On the other hand, it means having someone around when you're sick (maybe they'll even mow the lawn for you). Other people—can't live with them, can't transmit them to distant planets by ansible. (At least, not at this point in the series.)
Quote #9
Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him. (16.11)
This is San Angelo talking about community and Jesus. He is arguing that Jesus commanded obedience to the law and forgiveness of transgression, which is a difficult balance. Speaker for the Dead is in a lot of ways less concerned with how people can be good than with how communities can be good. The novel suggests that you don't get good communities from good people, but good people from good communities.
Quote #10
"I see," he said. "They were part of the tribe. From the sky, but we made them brothers and tried to make them fathers. The tribe is whatever we believe it is." (117.322)
Ender is teaching Human that communities can be what you want them to be; you can achieve greatness by claiming other folks as kin rather than by killing them. Which is cool, but it seems like the other people have to agree too. Inducting Pipo and Libo into the tribe didn't work so great, and mosquitos aren't ever going to be part of the human community. (Though trees can be, maybe. Or cats, as long as you don't mind them peeing on the bed occasionally.)