What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling? Ursula K. Le Guin writing fun thinking Primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Ursula K. Le Guin opposites war civilization We broke the world to make it whole. Ursula K. Le Guin broke whole world I'm not a quester or a searcher for the truth. I don't really think there is one answer, so I never went looking for it. My impulse is less questing and more playful. I like trying on ideas and ways of life and religious approaches. I'm just not a good candidate for conversion. Ursula K. Le Guin religious ideas thinking I have decided that the trouble with print is, it never changes its mind. Ursula K. Le Guin reading mind book A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life. Ursula K. Le Guin choices-made favors survival Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice. Ursula K. Le Guin quiet-voice despair speak I don't want to be a propagandist, no matter how good the cause. I want to tell stories. It's just that the stories have to square with my consciousness as a woman and my conscience as a human being. Ursula K. Le Guin squares stories want Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner. Ursula K. Le Guin political voice god The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That's enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on that paper. Ursula K. Le Guin paper writing long To know there is a choice is to have to make the choice: change or stay: river or rock. Ursula K. Le Guin rocks choices rivers If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin--the size of his mind, which included all that scientific curiosity and knowledge seeking, and the ability to put it all together. There is a genuine spirituality about Darwin's thinking. Ursula K. Le Guin curiosity hero thinking A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own. Ursula K. Le Guin intention machines animal It is a terrible thing, this kindess that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give. Ursula K. Le Guin small-changes dark giving The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities. Ursula K. Le Guin women responsibility rights Ignorant power is a bane! Ursula K. Le Guin bane ignorant Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison. Ursula K. Le Guin teeth running blood Alone, no one wins freedom. Ursula K. Le Guin groups freedom winning If you're a fiction writer, though, I can tell you how to let people talk through you. Listen. Just be quiet, and listen. Let the character talk. Don't censor, don't control. Listen, and write. Ursula K. Le Guin writing character people If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of these two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both. Ursula K. Le Guin opposites war civilization
