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Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes - Page 20

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A story rises from the springs of creation, from the pure will to be; it tells itself; I takes its own course, finds its own way, its own words; and the writer's job is to be its medium.

A story rises from the springs of creation, from the pure will to be; it tells itself; I takes its own course, finds its own way, its own words; and the writer's job is to be its medium.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Jobs, Spring, Writing
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.198, Grove Press

In art, 'good enough' is not good enough.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Art, Not Good Enough, Good Enough
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.88, Ultramarine Publishing

George, it's impossible to correct a defective reality-orientation overnight.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Reality, Impossible, Defective

I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing, Trying, Showing Up
"Ursula K. Le Guin: Still Battling the Powers That Be". Wired interview, www.wired.com. July 25, 2012.

Other people's stories may become part of your own, the foundation of it, the ground it goes on.

Ursula K. Le Guin
People, Foundation, Stories
Ursula K. Le Guin (2006). “Gifts”, p.26, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I am no more lonely than the loon on the pond that laughs so loud.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Lonely, Laughing, Ponds
Ursula K. Le Guin (1967). “Three Hainish Novels”

I think there is no way to write about being alone. To write is to tell something to somebody to communicate to others. . . . Solitude is noncommunication, the absence of others, the presence of a self sufficient to itself.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing, Thinking, Self
Ursula K. LeGuin (2014). “The Unreal and the Real Volume 2: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin: Outer Space & Inner Lands”, p.164, Hachette UK

There is not much you can say about a baby unless you are talking with its father or another mother or nurse; infants are not part of the realm of ordinary language, talk is inadequate to them as they are inadequate to talk.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Mother, Baby, Father
Ursula K. Le Guin (2008). “Lavinia”, p.193, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I have no control over my writing. I have lots of good intentions, but no control. There's a story that wants to be told.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing, Stories, Want
Interview with Faith L. Justice, www.salon.com. January 23, 2001.

Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts - only in the truth.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Artist, People, Facts

When I'm writing I don't dream much; it's like the dreaming gets used in the writing.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Dream, Writing, Used

I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Children, Imagination, Stories
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.131, Ultramarine Publishing

The future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Future, Thinking, Sacred
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.103, Grove Press

Dragons are more dangerous, and a good deal commoner, than bears. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a real wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Real, Dragons, Insanity
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.84, Ultramarine Publishing

Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.

Ursula K. Le Guin
People, Trying, Way
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.170, Grove Press

What good is power when you're too wise to use it?

Ursula K. Le Guin
Wise, Use

Gradually the healing took place, seeming as it always does that it wasn't taking place.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Healing, Doe, Seeming
Ursula K. Le Guin (2009). “Powers”, p.291, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Art, like sex, cannot be carried on indefinitely solo; after all, they have the same enemy, sterility.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Art, Sex, Enemy
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.27, Ultramarine Publishing

I've got some gift for languages. You follow your gift. But Latin's not easy.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Latin, Language, Easy

In the airport, luggage-laden people rush hither and yon through endless corridors, like souls to each of whom the devil has furnished a different, inaccurate map of the escape route from hell.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Airports, People, Soul
Ursula K. Le Guin (2014). “Changing Planes: Stories”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When we're done with it, we may find—if it's a good novel—that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having meet a new face, crossed a street we've never crossed before.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Different, Done, May

One man may as easily destroy, as govern: be King or Anti-King.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Kings, Men, May
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “The Farthest Shore”, p.172, Simon and Schuster

Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it is heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Stars, Fall, Thinking
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “The Farthest Shore”, p.84, Simon and Schuster

Meeting writers is always so disappointing. I got over wanting to meet live writers quite a long time ago. There is this terrific book that has changed your life, and then you meet the author, and he has shifty eyes and funny shoes and he won't talk about anything except the injustice of the United States income tax structure toward people with fluctuating income, or how to breed Black Angus cows, or something.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Book, Writing, Eye

In war everybody is a prisoner.

Ursula K. Le Guin
War, Prisoner
Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin”, p.420, Simon and Schuster

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