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We’re each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?

Ursula K. Le Guin

I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Doubt Eggplant Eradicated Grow Imagination Suppressed
What good is music? None … and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, ‘You are irrelevant’; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, ‘
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Amies Arrogant Factory Good Irrelevant Leader Music None Point State World
First sentences are doors to worlds.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

First Sentence World
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bad Consider Encouragement Habit Happiness Pedant Sophisticate Stupid Trouble
What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Destroy Goes Itself Long Too Unchanged
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 GUIN

Freedom Imagine Injustice Knew Live
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 GUIN

Back Breathed Gift Live Love Loved Yet
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bread Just Love Made New Remade Sit Stone Time
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Great Societies Society Story Use Wheel
The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Affection Anyone Deep Delight Hunter Meed Mother Nurse Socialist Source Successful Whole
Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Being Blind Business Grieving Learn Strange
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Burden Choice Easy Freedom Gift Great Strange Hard heavy Load Made Spirit Undertake
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Deny Dragon Eaten Existence Often People
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

Clench Cruelty Dull Eye Fire Great Hand Hidden Men Mountain Sea Shark
Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Artist Banality Evil Intellectual Interest Pain Refusal Terrible Treason
And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Course Creation Participate Read Size Soul Temper

We’re each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?

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We’re each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?

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Popular Authors

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