What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin The question is always the same with a dragon: will he talk with you or will he eat you? Ursula K. Le Guin myth fantasy dragons What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History. Ursula K. Le Guin land rivers trying But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them. Ursula K. Le Guin one-thing dragons The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K. Le Guin reading writing book Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books. Ursula K. Le Guin real book children No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars. Ursula K. Le Guin stars darkness forever Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art - the art of words. Ursula K. Le Guin divine-right resistance art The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes. Ursula K. Le Guin eye dark beautiful I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination. Ursula K. Le Guin growing-up believe children What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? Ursula K. Le Guin crazy depression funny You can go home again...so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been. Ursula K. Le Guin home long Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can't step into the same river twice. Life--evolution--the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy--existence itself--is essentially change. Ursula K. Le Guin space matter rivers Music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music. Ursula K. Le Guin music way thinking Well, we think that time "passes," flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see. The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers. Ursula K. Le Guin time book moving This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss. Ursula K. Le Guin safety stars art To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention. Ursula K. Le Guin definitions fiction thinking I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details. Ursula K. Le Guin details simple thinking Reading is performance. The reader--the child under the blanket with a flashlight, the woman at the kitchen table, the man at the library desk--performs the work. The performance is silent. The readers hear the sounds of the words and the beat of the sentences only in their inner ear. Silent drummers on noiseless drums. An amazing performance in an amazing theater. Ursula K. Le Guin reading men children It had never occurred to me before that music and thinking are so much alike. In fact you could say music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music. Ursula K. Le Guin writing way thinking Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too. Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally, language used wrongly, breeds lies, half-truths, confusion. In that sense you can say that grammar is morality. And it is in that sense that I say a writer's first duty is to use language well. Ursula K. Le Guin confusion lying needs
