Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing? Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin More Quotes From Ursula K. Le Guin 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. Ursula K. Le Guin growing-up believe children I came into science fiction at a very good time, when the doors were getting thrown open to all kinds of more experimental writing, more literary writing, riskier writing. It wasn't all imitation Heinlein or Asimov. And of course, women were creeping in, infiltrating. Infesting the premises. Ursula K. Le Guin writing doors fiction Greed puts out the sun. Ursula K. Le Guin greed sun Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. Ursula K. Le Guin prophet novelists lying Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god? Ursula K. Le Guin fire desire heart It always seemed to me they're sort of alike ... magic and music. Spells and tunes. For one thing, you have to get them just exactly right. Ursula K. Le Guin spells magic tunes Suffering is dysfunctional, except as a bodily warning against danger. Psychologically and socially it's merely destructive. Ursula K. Le Guin suffering warning danger The counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living. Ursula K. Le Guin profitable Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them. Ursula K. Le Guin writing book children Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger. Ursula K. Le Guin stranger Well, the secret to writing is writing. It's only a secret to people who don't want to hear it. Writing is how you be a writer. Ursula K. Le Guin secret writing people I'd rather get bad news from an honest man than lies from a flatterer. Ursula K. Le Guin news men lying What is more arrogant than honesty? Ursula K. Le Guin arrogant honesty Morality is an utterly meaningless term unless defined as the good one does to others, the fulfilling of one's function in the sociopolitical whole. Ursula K. Le Guin function morality doe Sleeping people are so remote.... Right here, but out of communication. That's what strikes humans as uncanny about sleep. Its utter privacy. The sleeper turns his back on everyone. Ursula K. Le Guin communication sleep people Dreams take short cuts. Ursula K. Le Guin short-cuts cutting dream All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some people used to think. Ursula K. Le Guin times-are-changing people thinking In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting. Ursula K. Le Guin drawbacks men interesting 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 Ursula K. Le Guin mysterious writing art Infinite are the arguments of mages. Ursula K. Le Guin argument infinite
