Other people's stories may become part of your own, the foundation of it, the ground it goes on. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. Ursula K. Le Guin humorsleepfunny To be whole is to be part; Ursula K. Le Guin voyagesreturnwhole Can true function arise from basic dysfunction? Ursula K. Le Guin functiondysfunctionarise If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong -- not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck -- if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival. Ursula K. Le Guin survivalchildrenthinking A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They'd rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book. Ursula K. Le Guin demandassumptionbook I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. Ursula K. Le Guin eggplantgrowing-upchildren Ah, genre. A word only a Frenchman could love. Ursula K. Le Guin frenchmengenre The backside of heroism is often rather sad; women and servants know that. They know also that the heroism may be no less real for that. But achievement is smaller than men think. What is large is the sky, the earth, the sea, the soul. Ursula K. Le Guin realmenthinking My soul is ten thousand miles wide and extremely invisibly deep. It is the same size as the sea, and you cannot, you cannot cram it into beer cans and fingernails and stake it out in lots and own it. It will drown you all and never even notice. Ursula K. Le Guin soulseabeer Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. Ursula K. Le Guin choices-madelightmay It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul. Ursula K. Le Guin gedsoulevil A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the next table dead, and walked out. Everyone rushed after it, shouting "Stop! Stop! Why did you do that?" "Becuase I am a panda," said the panda. "That's what pandas do. If you don't believe me, look in the dictionary." So they looked in the dictionary and sure enough they found Panda: Racoon-like animal of Asia. Eats shoots and leaves. Ursula K. Le Guin animalmenbelieve The story is not in the plot but in the telling. Ursula K. Le Guin plotstorieswriting If women had power, what would men be but women who can't bear children? And what would women be but men who can?" "Hah!" went Tenar; and presently, with some cunning, she said, "Haven't there been queens? Weren't they women of power?" "A queen's only a she-king," said Ged. She snorted. "I mean, men give her power. They let her use their power. But it isn't hers, is it? It isn't because she's a woman that she's powerful, but despite it. Ursula K. Le Guin queenskingschildren What's wrong with men?" Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, "I don't know, my dearie. I've thought on it. Often I've thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell." She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. "It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is. It's all him and nothing else, inside. Ursula K. Le Guin strongselfmen There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on. Ursula K. Le Guin wallrealchildren Would you really like to live in a society where you have no responsibility and no freedom, no choice, only the false option of obedience to the law, or disobedience followed by punishment? Would you really want to go live in a prison? Ursula K. Le Guin punishmentresponsibilitylaw I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. Ursula K. Le Guin atheistartistliars We have been civilized for a thousand millennia. We have histories of hundreds of those millennia. We have tried everything. Anarchism, in all its forms, with the rest. But I have not tried it. They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born? Ursula K. Le Guin single-lifelife-issun It win be a device that will permit communication without any time interval between two points in space. The device will not transmit messages, of course; simultaneity is identity. But to our perceptions, that simultaneity will function as a transmission, a sending. So we will be able to use it to talk between worlds, without the long waiting for the message to go and the reply to return that electromagnetic impulses require. It is really a very simple matter. Like a kind of telephone. Ursula K. Le Guin communicationsimplewinning
