As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin on child
Ursula K. Le Guin161 quotes · See all“As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off.”
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin You can go home again…so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin To the lives that haven’t been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Those who build walls are their own prisoners.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Original quotes
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My heart keeps room for you always even when you can’t be here.
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More on child
As long as I was well fed, I was a very, very nice child. I just used my imagination and played with Barbies. I was pretty easy.
Sabrina CarpenterSabrina Carpenter The barking dog that robs you of sleep, the heat of summer, the cold of winter. Forgive the ingrown toenail, the flea that bites; forgive the cranky child, wrinkles, a forgotten birthday.
Barbara WoodBarbara Wood The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access
Timothy KellerTimothy Keller Nothing fortuitous happens in a child’s world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
John BergerJohn Berger It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born..
Beatrix PotterBeatrix Potter 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.
Carson McCullersCarson McCullers 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.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin