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Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes - Page 7

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In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel -

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, 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 changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Believe, Reading, Different
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.158, Ultramarine Publishing

as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness. You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities. Nobody else in the world can do it, or ever could do it, or ever will be able to do it again.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Country, Loneliness, Law

No matter how intelligent a man is, he can't see what he doesn't know how to see.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Intelligent, Men, Matter
Ursula K. LeGuin (2015). “The Dispossessed”, p.61, Hachette UK

Ignorant power is a bane!

Ursula K. Le Guin
Ignorant, Bane
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “Tales from Earthsea”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Running, Blood, Teeth
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.30, Grove Press

It is not human to be without shame and without desire.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Desire, Shame, Humans
Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.124, Penguin

There is no information about corporations. There is only disinformation.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Corporations, Information
Ursula K. Le Guin (2014). “Changing Planes: Stories”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Children, Growing Up, Eggplant
Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.42, Ultramarine Publishing

I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Simple, Thinking, Details
Ursula K. LeGuin (2014). “The Unreal and the Real Volume 2: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin: Outer Space & Inner Lands”, p.147, Hachette UK

Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can't step into the same river twice. Life--evolution--the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy--existence itself--is essentially change.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Rivers, Space, Matter
Ursula K. Le Guin (2008). “The Lathe Of Heaven: A Novel”, p.139, Simon and Schuster

If one believes that words are acts, as I do, then one must hold writers responsible for what their words do.

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

In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves; it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Fall, Clouds, Wind
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “A Wizard of Earthsea”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Morning, Dragons, Wind
Ursula K. Le Guin (2004). “The Farthest Shore: Book Three”, p.193, Simon and Schuster

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Life, Hurt, Two
Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.170, Penguin

Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Buddhism, Order, Heaven
Interview with Steve Lafreniere, www.vice.com. December 02, 2008.

Even the best weapon is an unhappy tool, hateful to living things. So the follower of the Way stays away from it. Weapons are unhappy tools, not chosen by thoughtful people, to be used only when there is no choice, and with a calm, still mind, without enjoyment. To enjoy using weapons is to enjoy killing people, and to enjoy killing people is to lose your share in the common good. It is right that the murder of many people be mourned and lamented. It is right that a victor in war be received with funeral ceremonies.

Ursula K. Le Guin
War, Thoughtful, People
Ursula K. Le Guin, Jerome P. Seaton (2009). “Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way”, p.48, Shambhala Publications

Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Funny, Good Morning, Good Day
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.143, Grove Press

To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Law, Thieves, Anarchy
Ursula K. LeGuin (2015). “The Dispossessed”, p.63, Hachette UK

The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Interesting, Silence, Topics
Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.3, Grove Press

One voice speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Time, Army, Voice
Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.28, Penguin

My soul is ten thousand miles wide and extremely invisibly deep. It is the same size as the sea, and you cannot, you cannot cram it into beer cans and fingernails and stake it out in lots and own it. It will drown you all and never even notice.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Beer, Sea, Soul

The old knowledge had been difficult but not distressing. It had been all paradox and myth, and it had made sense. The new knowledge was all fact and reason, and it made no sense.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Facts, Paradox, Reason
Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin”, p.287, Simon and Schuster

If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong -- not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck -- if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Children, Thinking, Survival
Ursula K. Le Guin (2017). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.31, Grove Press

It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Evil, Soul, Ged
Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “A Wizard of Earthsea”, p.141, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Stress, Skills, Darkness
"The Left Hand of Darkness". Book by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969.

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