I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin All of us have to learn how to invent our lives , make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people . Ursula K. Le Guin taughtskillspeople Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass. Ursula K. Le Guin wind-blowingfieldsmatter You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change. Ursula K. Le Guin crushideasthinking All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them. Ursula K. Le Guin hard-workwaitingwriting The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. Ursula K. Le Guin technologyeyebook In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle. Ursula K. Le Guin writingrunningblood As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off. Ursula K. Le Guin powerfulwishchildren We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable. Ursula K. Le Guin demandjusticetrying The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself. Ursula K. Le Guin asking-yourself-questionsbeing-yourselfmatter All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Ursula K. Le Guin truth-ispatternswhole As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. Ursula K. Le Guin compassiongrievingchildren I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion. Ursula K. Le Guin lightstrongspring To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good. Ursula K. Le Guin endsclaimswise A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole. Ursula K. Le Guin growing-upmotherchildren Time has two aspects. There is the arrow, the running river, without which there is no change, no progress, or direction, or creation. And there is the circle or the cycle, without which there is chaos, meaningless succession of instants, a world without clocks or seasons or promises. Ursula K. Le Guin circlestimerunning I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me. Ursula K. Le Guin lightforgottenworld If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. ...But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion. Ursula K. Le Guin godinspirationallife Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat... where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches. Ursula K. Le Guin swingswritingart The reason literacy is important is that literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have. The most useful guide to the country we're visiting, life. Ursula K. Le Guin importantreadingcountry 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 thoughtfulwarpeople
