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There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

Ursula K. Le Guin

We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adapt Appetite Control Destroy Fast Ourselves Violence World
Success is somebody else’s failure.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Else Failure Somebody Success
If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Chance Come Evade Fulfill Home Joy May Pleasure Suffer
I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

After Care Come Dragon Morning Seen Wind
There is no information about corporations. There is only disinformation.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Corporation Disinformation Information Only
Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Call Chnagebale Ever Faithless Honor Jealous Men Sexual Some Threatened Through Truth Women
A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adult Box Either Kid Speak Upset Writer
Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art – the art of words.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Being Often Resistance Change Word
And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Came Done Forgot Have Once Remember Saw Sunset Western Wind
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

Adult Believe Child Dead Maturity Outgrowing Survive
No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Forever Last Star
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Content Evil Hard Hold Soul Very
The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Above Abyss Always Dance Hollow Place Terrible
Well, we think that time “passes,” flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Always Discover Forward Future Move New Pass Past Think Time
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 GUIN

Change Crush Idea Ignore Refuse Suppressing Think
There are no right answers to wrong questions.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Answer Question Right Wrong
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
The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Between Book Cover Reader Sall Understand Universe
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Darkness End Must Must Heard Safety Silence Star
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
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

Child Children Do Kitten Mindless Other Powerful Want
A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the next table dead, and walked out.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ate Dead Man Next Order Out Panda Pistol Pull Room Salad Shot Table Tea Walk
But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Another Dragon Meet One Read Thing
Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Children Good Perfectly Well Real True Unicorn
As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Archive Children Compassion Great Hope Imagination Perception Scientist
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.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Answer Canned Catch Eaten Metaphor Original Source Suppose Swing Word
as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bought Free Freedom Fresh Loneliness Solitude Writer

There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

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There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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