I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away. — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
We scarcely know how much of our pleasure and interest in life comes to us through our eyes until we have to… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device,… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing -- instead of around,… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
True myths may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal.… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“...I wore his blood for clothing, on my legs and thighs and hands: a dry, stiff, brown garment with no warmth in it.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“Aeneas' mother is a star?" "No; a goddess." I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus." He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
“Meaning - this is perhaps the common note, the bane I am seeking. What is the Meaning of this book, this event in the… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
For fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
“. . . chronosophy does involve ethics. Because our sense of time involves our ability to separate cause and effect, means and end. The baby, again, the animal, they don't see the difference between what they do now and what will happen because of it. They can't make a pulley, or a promise. We can. Seeing the difference between now… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
“If both you and your plane are on time, the airport is merely a diffuse, short, miserable prelude to the intense, long, miserable plane trip. But what if there's five hours between your arrival and your connecting flight, or your plane is late arriving and you've missed your connection, or the connecting flight is late, or the staff of another… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
Between thought and spoken word is a gap where intention can enter, the symbol be twisted aside, and the lie come to be. — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“I did a lot today. That is, I did something. The only thing I have ever done. I pressed a button. It took the… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
To me the female principle is, or at least historically has been, basically anarchic. It values order without constraint, rule by custom not by… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
