Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

The story is not in the plot but in the telling.

Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark.

Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.

Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other–outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.

We read books to find out who we are.

All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge.

Listen.’ For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.

It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.