“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future -… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making. — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer.… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Sci-fi uses the images that sf - starting with H.G. Wells - made familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic. — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“On a world where a common table implement is a little device with which you crack the ice that has formed on… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
There are very real differences between science fiction and realistic fiction, between horror and fantasy, between romance and mystery. Differences in writing… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
I don’t think ‘science fiction’ is a very good name for it, but it’s the name that we’ve got. It is different… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“To use the enemy's weapon is to play the enemy's game...speak the truth and hear the truth.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
I came into science fiction at a very good time, when the doors were getting thrown open to all kinds of more… — 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
“Almost everything carried to its logical extreme becomes either depressing or carcinogenic.” — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“I go on writing in both respectable and despised genres because I respect them all, rejoice in their differences, and reject only… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“...[T]he only means I have to stop ignorant snobs from behaving towards genre fiction with snobbish ignorance is to not reinforce their… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“The only social change presented by most SF has been towards authoritarianism, the domination of ignorant masses by a powerful elite—sometimes presented… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“A lot of people still maintain genre prejudice. I still meet matrons who tell me kindly that their children enjoyed my books… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
I think what's happening is, it's all - fantasy, science fiction, ghosts, trolls, whatever - finally being called, being admitted to be… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“All brightness was gone, leaving nothing. We stepped out of the tent onto nothing. Sledge and tent were there, Estraven stood beside… — 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… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“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… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“. . . 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 Image
“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 Image
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
