“Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“He thought of death, in that gap between the beginning of a step and its completion, and at the end of the… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
It is a real wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“He had been trying to measure the distance between the earth and God.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
The backside of heroism is often rather sad; women and servants know that. They know also that the heroism may be no… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a real wilderness, and those who… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“I know who I was, I can tell you who I may have been, but I am, now, only in this line… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“...close up, a world's all dirt and rocks... The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
A man who doesn't detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“The strange fortune of my lynx brought him to live in an artificial environment, a human community utterly foreign to him. His… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws,… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“This was a great magic. Festin had no more performed it than has any man who in exile or danger longs for… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“It's your nature to be Tirin, and my nature to be Shevek, and our common nature to be Odonians, responsible to one… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other--outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“So he worked. He lost weight; he walked light on the earth. Lack of physical labor, lack of variety of occupation, lack… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“It was not that Abbenay was short of power, not with her wind turbines and the earth temperature-differential generators used for heating;… — 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
No society can change the nature of existence. We can't prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“assumed that if you removed a human being’s natural incentive to work—his initiative, his spontaneous creative energy—and replaced it with external motivation… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“This concern, feebly called 'love of nature', seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought,… — 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
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
“Aeneas' mother is a star?" "No; a goddess." I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when… — 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
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… — 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… — 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… — 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
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
“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
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
“Hector had no virtue?” “Of course he did. He won all his battles, till the last one.” “We all do,” Aeneas remarked.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
“I was willing to believe him that most modern writing was trash, on the evidence that so much old writing was trash; but I… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
“Can women operate as women in a male institution without becoming imitation men?” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share
