I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin Jungians such as Joseph Campbell have generalised such journeys into a set of archetypal events and images. Though they can be useful in criticism, I mistrust them as fatally reductive. “Ah, the Night Sea Voyage!” we cry, feeling that we have understood something important — but we’ve merely recognised it. Until we are actually on that voyage, we have understood nothing. Ursula K. Le Guin journeyseanight Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his brief broken life came within mind's reach and made a whole again. He knew once more, at last, after this long, bitter, waisted time, who he was and where he was. But where he must go in the years to come, that he could not see; and he feared to see it. Ursula K. Le Guin nightlongyears The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well. Ursula K. Le Guin goodnessmindtrying Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping. Thus to Ged, who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given him that gift that only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakeable trust. Ursula K. Le Guin namesgivingmen Wrongs done could not be righted, but at least they were not still being done. Ursula K. Le Guin being-donestillsdone 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 gapstwistedlying Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away. Ursula K. Le Guin lightlooksyears Genre fiction was looked at as a ghetto, but I wonder now if realist fiction, sealing itself off in the glum suburbs of a dysfunctional society, denying the use of imagination, was the ghetto. Ursula K. Le Guin ghettoimaginationfiction Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light? Ursula K. Le Guin shadowlightdoe There are things that outweigh comfort, unless one is an old woman or a cat. Ursula K. Le Guin old-womancatcomfort The historic function of a Senator from Oregon is to drive all the other Senators mad. Ursula K. Le Guin oregonhistoricmad There are very real differences between science fiction and realistic fiction, between horror and fantasy, between romance and mystery. Differences in writing them, in reading them, in criticizing them. Vive les différences! They're what gives each genre its singular flavor and savor, its particular interest for the reader - and the writer. Ursula K. Le Guin realreadingwriting A man who saw a miracle would reject his eyes' witness, if those with him saw nothing. Ursula K. Le Guin miracleeyemen We sleep researchers like cats, you know; they sleep a lot! Ursula K. Le Guin researcherscatsleep The more defensive a society, the more conformist. Ursula K. Le Guin conformist Now perhaps an excessive dread of overpopulation--overcrowding--reflects not an outward reality, but an inward state of mind. If you feel overcrowded when you're not, what does that mean? Maybe that you're afraid of human contact--of being close to people, of being touched. Ursula K. Le Guin meanrealitypeople A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. Ursula K. Le Guin fatedestinymen There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career--my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker--she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose. Ursula K. Le Guin virginiacareerswriting My great-aunt. . . . said nobody under 18 had any business reading Dickens. . . . She was right. Ursula K. Le Guin auntreadingsaid Sometimes a god comes.... He brings a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done. A new kind of singing, or a new kind of death. He brings this across the bridge between the dream-time and the world-time. When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses. That is insanity. What is, is. There is no use pretending, now, that we do not know how to kill one another. Ursula K. Le Guin wallbridgesdream
