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Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes - Page 4

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A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The

A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Mother, Children, Growing Up
"The Dispossessed". Book by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974.

The reason literacy is important is that literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have. The most useful guide to the country we're visiting, life.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Country, Reading, Important
Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a WriterÕs Week”, p.14, Small Beer Press

When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Messages, Consciousness, Changing Your Life
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.78, Ultramarine Publishing

If you evade suffering, you also evade the chance of joy.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Joy, Suffering, Chance
Ursula K. LeGuin (2015). “The Dispossessed”, p.144, Hachette UK

The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Inspirational, Prayer, Important

Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this: Every group we belong to - by gender, sex, race, religion, age - is an in-group, surrounded by an immense out-group, living next door and all over the world, who will be alive as far into the future as humanity has a future. That out-group is called other people. It is for them that we write.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Sex, Lying, Writing
Ursula K. Le Guin (2004). “The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination”, p.197, Shambhala Publications

The story is not in the plot but in the telling.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing, Stories, Plot
Ursula K. Le Guin (2015). “Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story”, p.123, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Betrayal, Names, Voice

You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?

Ursula K. Le Guin
Men, Sea, Forever
Ursula K. Le Guin (2004). “The Farthest Shore: Book Three”, p.160, Simon and Schuster

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Inspirational, Motivational, Graduation
Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.151, Penguin

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Happiness, Pain, Stupid
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". Book by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973.

Besides, when you say you're a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it's kind of irresistible.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Feminist, Kind, Annoying
Interview with Guy Haley, guyhaley.wordpress.com. September 17, 2014.

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Peace, Asking Questions, Questions And Answers
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.139, Ultramarine Publishing

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Mean, What If, Ends
Ursula K. Le Guin (2008). “The Lathe Of Heaven: A Novel”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Hard Work, Writing, Waiting
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.200, Grove Press

But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Dragons, One Thing
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “A Wizard of Earthsea”, p.92, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past. Therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Positive, Real, Past

I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Children, Growing Up, Believe
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.44, Ultramarine Publishing

Success is somebody else's failure.

Ursula K. Le Guin
A Left-Handed Commencement Address, delivered 22 May 1983, Mills College, Oakland, California

While we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices... Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Believe, Book, Voice
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.157, Ultramarine Publishing

Those who build walls are their own prisoners.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Wall, Prisoner, Disapproval
Ursula K. LeGuin (2015). “The Dispossessed”, p.143, Hachette UK

Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Dark, Glowing, Two

Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other--outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Men, What Matters, Self
Ursula K. Le Guin (2017). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.195, Grove Press

Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'. But a writer's job is ingoing.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Jobs, Nice, Writing

Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Use, Share, Ifs
Ursula K. Le Guin (2009). “The Dispossessed”, p.21, Harper Collins

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