The machine conceals the machinations. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means. Ursula K. Le Guin what-if ends mean We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. Ursula K. Le Guin volcanoes feminism peace Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth! Ursula K. Le Guin truth writing lying 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 from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own. But where I can get prickly and combative is, if I’m just called a sci-fi writer. I’m not. I’m a novelist and poet. Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions. Ursula K. Le Guin names writing thinking There is no information about corporations. There is only disinformation. Ursula K. Le Guin corporations information Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark. Ursula K. Le Guin glowing dark two What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. Ursula K. Le Guin long It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be. Ursula K. Le Guin knows needs To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past. Therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future. Ursula K. Le Guin real positive past When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow. Ursula K. Le Guin shadow light darkness The worst walls are never the ones you find in your way. The worst walls are the ones you put there . Ursula K. Le Guin wall acceptance way Sci-fi uses the images that sf - starting with H.G. Wells - made familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time machines, et cetera, taking them literally, not caring if they are possible or even plausible. It has no interest in or relation to real science or technology. It's fantasy in space suits. Spectacle. Wizards with lasers. Kids with ray guns. I've written both, but I have to say I respect science fiction enough that I wince when people call it sci-fi. Ursula K. Le Guin real war kids And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change. Change is freedom, change is life Ursula K. Le Guin stupid spiritual people One voice speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies. Ursula K. Le Guin army voice time What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice. Ursula K. Le Guin anarchist choices responsibility Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live. Ursula K. Le Guin buddhism heaven order Fake realism is the escapist literature of our time. And probably the ultimate escapist reading is that masterpiece of total unreality, the daily stock market report. Ursula K. Le Guin fake reading literature Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility. Ursula K. Le Guin absolute-freedom freedom responsibility There's a great fear of the imagination. It's a dangerous thing. It's out of control, it's subversive. Ursula K. Le Guin dangerous-things dangerous imagination If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book. Ursula K. Le Guin fifteen reading book
